LIPPINCOTT'S 

TRAINING  SERIES 


'For  those  who  want 
to  find    themselves" 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

BY 

WILLIAM  MAXWELL 


LIPPINCOTT'S 
TRAINING  SERIES 

"For  those  who  want 

to   find  themselves" 

The  books  in  the  Lippincott's  Training  Series, 
by  the  leaders  in  the  different  professions,  will  do 
much  to  help  the  beginner  on  life's  highway.  In  a 
straightforward  manner  the  demand  upon  charac- 
ter, the  preparatory  needs,  the  channels  of  advance- 
ment, and  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of 
the  different  pursuits  are  presented  in 

THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 
BY  WILLIAM  MAXWELL 

Vice-President  of  Thomas  A.  Edison,  Inc. 

TRAINING  FOR  THE  NEWSPAPER  TRADE 
BY  DON  C.  SEITZ 

Business  Manager  of  the  New  York  World. 

TRAINING  FOR  THE  STAGE 

BY  ARTHUR  HORNBLOW 

Editor  of  "The  Theatre  Magasine." 

TRAINING  FOR  THE  ELECTRIC  RAILWAY 

BUSINESS 
BY  C.  B.  FAIRCHILD,  JR. 

Executive  Assistant,  Phila.  Rapid  Transit  Co. 

TRAINING  AND  REWARDS  OF   THE 

PHYSICIAN 
BY  RICHARD  C.  CABOT,  M.D. 

TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

BY   GlFFORD   PlNCHOT 

These  books  should  be  in  every  school  and  college 
library.  Put  them  in  the  hands  of  your  young 
friends;  they  will  thank  you. 

Other  volumes  in  preparation 
Each  thoroughly  illustrated,  decorated  cloth 


1C  C     «  •         «' 


WANTED — A  MAN  WITH  EXECUTIVE  ABILITY 


Page  168 


LIPPINCQTT'S  TRAINING  SERIES 

THE    TRAINING 
OF   A   SALESMAN 


BY 

WILLIAM  MAXWELL 

M 
VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  THOMAS   A.   EDISON,  INC. 

AUTHOR   OF    "IF  I  WERE  TWENTY-ONE,"    "SALESMANSHIP,"  ETC. 

6  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PHILADELPHIA  AND  LONDON 
J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,   IpIQ,  BY  JF.  B.   LI PPINCOTT- COMPANY 


PRINTED   BY  J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

AT  THE  WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA,    U.  S.  A. 


This  volume  is  dedicated  to  a  lady  to 
whom  I  succeeded  in  selling  myself  and 
who,  I  hope,  has  never  rued  her  bargain 


4G2214 


PREFACE 

BEING  a  salesman,  I  realize  the  limitations 
that  are  upon  the  man  who  attempts  to  teach 
salesmanship.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  most  human 
of  occupations,  and  is  correspondingly  dif- 
ficult to  diagram.  However,  the  following 
simple  diagram  is  expressive  of  the  funda- 
mentals of  salesmanship,  and  your  interest 
in  the  chapters  that  follow  will  be  stimulated 
if  you  carry  these  principles  in  niind, 

THE  FOUR  PHASES  OF  SALESMANSHIP 


Manifest  a  genuine  but  adequately 
respectful  friendliness  that  conveys 
to  your  prospective  customer  a  pleas- 
ant sense  of  your  personal  interest  in 
his  needs. 


Gaming 
Attention 


Enlarging 
Interest 


If  practicable,  employ  an  act  or  re- 
mark that  detaches  your  prospective 
customer's  mind  from  all  other  sub- 
jects, and  fixes  his  entire  attention  on 
the  article  in  which  he  has  indicated 
interest,  or  in  respect  of  which  you 
desire  to  excite  his  interest. 

Create  in  your  prospective  customer's 
mind  an  agreeable  picture  of  his  own- 
ership and  use  of  the  article  which 
you  are  endeavoring  to  sell. 


Creating 
Conviction 


PREFACE 

Reiterate  the  advantages  or  pleasure 
that  will  accrue  to  your  prospective 
customer  from  his  purchase  of  the 


article  you  are  attempting  to  seD. 

{Make  it  easy  for  your  prospective 
customer  to  say  yes;  make  it  difficult 
for  him  to  say  no. 

The  methods  of  the  salesman  must  vary 
somewhat,  according  to  the  character  of  his 
goods,  the  kind  of  people  who  buy  them,  and 
the  circumstances  of  each  case,  but  always 
he  should  bear  in  mind  the  fundamental 
phases  of  a  sale,  and  endeavor  to  accomplish 
each  phase  before  he  proceeds  to  the  next. 
In  some  instances  the  customer's  premedita- 
tion may  have  determined  him  to  purchase, 
and  the  salesman,  in  such  cases,  should 
merely  confirm  by  his  own  actions  and  re- 
marks the  good  judgment  of  the  customer. 
However,  the  salesman  should  not  assume  a 
predetermination  to  buy  unless  it  is  clearly 
manifest  by  the  demeanor  of  the  prospective 
customer. 

THE  AUTHOR. 

ORANGE,  N.  J., 
January,  1919. 


CONTENTS 


SIZING  UP  A  CUSTOMER 21 

A  PREVALENT  MISCONCEPTION  IN  REGARD  TO  CHAR- 
ACTER READING — MISTAKEN  IMPRESSIONS  OF  THE 

CUSTOMER'S  READINESS  TO  BUY — JUDGING  BY 
APPEARANCES — THE  UNALERT  SALESMANSHIP  IN  A 

FAMOUS  NEW  YORK  STORE — THE  RETAILER'S  EXCUSE 
FOR  POOR  SALESMANSHIP — THE  PRACTICABILITY  OP 
ONE  GENERAL  SELLING  METHOD — NECESSITY  OP 
VARYING  METHODS  IN  CLOSING  A  SALE — WHY  MANY 
SALESMEN  ARE  "  POOR  CLOSERS." 

APPROACH 54 

A  GOOD  TIP  ON  SALESMANSHIP — TWO  SYSTEMS  OP 
SALESMANSHIP — SALUTATION  AND  INTRODUCTION — 
THE  RIGHT  KIND  OF  GREETING — PHYSICAL  ACTS 
THAT  COMPORT  WITH  YOUR  GREETING — TREAT- 
MENT OF  THE  NEWLY  ARRIVED  CUSTOMER — THE 
INTRODUCTION  OF  THE  GOODS — THE  APPROACH  OF  A 
STORE  SALESMAN  AND  THAT  OF  A  TRAVELING  SALES- 
MAN— AN  EXAMPLE  OF  A  DIFFICULT  APPROACH — 
KEEPING  THE  BUYER  CONSTANTLY  IN  THE  PICTURE — 
AN  UTTERLY  WRONG  APPROACH — LEAVING  A  TRAIL 
OF  FRIENDS  BEHIND — CORRECTING  THE  WRONG 
APPROACH  INTO  A  GOOD  APPROACH — THE  PROBLEM 
OF  AN  IOWA  AUTOMOBILE  SALESMAN — THE  IMPOR- 
TANCE OF  FEELING  WELL. 

OVERCOMING  A  CUSTOMER'S  INDIFFERENCE       79 

THE  EXPERIENCE  OF  A  MINNESOTA  SALESMAN — 
"IT  IS  HARD  TO  CONVERT  A  COMPLACENT  MAN" — 
WHAT  MAKEa  A  MAN  ACT  LIKE  A  CLAM? — HOW  TO 
OPEN  A  HUMAN  CLAM — BILLY  SUNDAY  AND  THE  SKIL- 
FUL TRIAL  LAWYER — HOW  CAN  A  SALESMAN  MODIFY 
AND  ADAPT  THEIR  METHODS  TO  SALESMANSHIP? 
— GAINING  COMPLETE  ATTENTION — MAKING  THE 
CUSTOMER  THINK  OF  HIMSELF — THE  PERSONAL 
SHOW-DOWN — OVERCOMING  EVASION. 

7 


CONTENTS 

GETTING  THE  ORDER 92 

THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  A  POOR  CLOSER — A  "NATURAL 
GIFT  FOR  SELLING" — THE  PLEASANT  PERSONALITY — 
PERSONALITY  DURING  BUSINESS  HOURS — USING  THE 
BUYER'S  KNOWLEDGE  AND  THE  BUYER'S  THOUGHTS 

— EXAMPLES — WHEN  TO  LAND  THE  ORDER — THE 
CLOSING  TALK — EXAMPLES — THE  DIFFICULTIES  OP  A 
PADUCAH,  KENTUCKY,  SALESMAN — MEETING  OBJEC- 
TIONS TO  PRICE — DEALING  WITH  MAIL  ORDER  COM- 
PETITION— HOW  MUCH  TIME  SHOULD  BE  SPENT  ON 
A  PERSON  WHO  IS  APPARENTLY  MERELY  "LOOKING?" 
— BRINGING  A  SLOW  CUSTOMER  TO  A  SHOW-DOWN 
WITHOUT  OFFENSE — HOW  TO  SAVE  THE  CUSTOMER 
FOR  ANOTHER  DAY. 

GOOD  SALESMANSHIP  BADLY  DONE 115 

THE  COMPLAINT  OF  A  BOSTON  RAILROAD  OFFICIAL — 
INTRIGUING  A  CUSTOMER'S  INTEREST  IN  ARTICLES 
WHICH  HE  HAD  NOT  INTENDED  TO  BUY — AVOID- 
ING PERFUNCTORY  QUESTIONS — HOW  TO  SELL  A  HAT. 

DO  YOU  WANT  TO  BE  RICH? 123 

MONEY  MAY  BE  THE  ROOT  OF  ALL  EVIL  BUT  IT  IS 
ALSO  A  TOKEN  OF  SUCCESS — THE  BEST  METHODS  OF 
MAKING  MONEY  ARE  HONORABLE  METHODS — THE 
OPINION  OF  A  CHICAGO  MILLIONAIRE — THE  STRANGE 
INABILITY  OF  MOST  RICH  MEN?  TO  EXPLAIN  THEIR 
RESPECTIVE  SUCCESSES — THE  CAREER  OF  A  STREET 
CAR  DRIVER  WHO  GREW  TO  BE  A  MILLIONAIRE — 
HOW  YOU  OR  I  MIGHT  DO  THE  SAME  THING. 

WHY  EDISON  HAS  SUCCEEDED 136 

THE  PUBLIC'S  MISTAKEN  IMPRESSION  .  OF  THOMAS 
A.  EDISON — EDISON  IS  THE  "ORIGINAL  MAN  FROM 
MISSOURI" — THE  STANDARDS  BY  WHICH  MR.  EDISON 
JUDGES  MEN — HOW  THE  WIZARD  TESTS  MEN — 
EDISON'S  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  DRINKING  MEN — THE 
TYPE  OF  MAN  MR.  EDISON  LIKES — THE  DIFFICULTY 
OF  FOOLING  EDISON — HIS  METHOD  OF  DRIVING  TO- 
WARD AN  OBJECTIVE — EXAMPLES  OF  HIS  BUSINESS 
FORESIGHT — MR.  EDISON'S  HABIT  OF  PLANNING 
AHEAD  AND  THE  DIFFICULTY  OF  FINDING  MEN  WHO 
FULLY  COMPREHEND  HIS  PLANS — HOW  HE  TRAINED 
HIS  SON  FOR  THE  BUSINESS — EDISON'S  INFLUENCE 
ON  HIS  ASSOCIATES. 

8 


CONTENTS 
WANTED— A  MAN  WITH  EXECUTIVE  ABILITY     168 

WHAT  IS  EXECUTIVE  ABILITY? — THE  GUESSING 
EXECUTIVE — WHY  HE  IS  SOMETIMES  SUCCESSFUL — 
THE  SUBORDINATION  OF  INTELLIGENCE  TO  INSTINCT — 
THE  PHYSICAL  SYMPTOMS  OF  INCIPIENT  EXECU- 
TIVE ABILITY — A  COMMON  FAULT  OF  EXECUTIVES 
AND  HOW  THE  LATE  CHARLES  DEERE  BROUGHT  IT 
HOME  TO  A  SUBORDINATE — ARE  YOU  THE  SECRE- 
TARIAL OR  EXECUTIVE  TYPE  OF  MAN? — EXAMPLE — 
HOW  TO  DETECT  EXECUTIVE  ABILITY. 

THE  50-DOLLAR-A-WEEK  GIRL 201 

HOW  SERIOUS  ARE  YOU  AND  HOW  GAME  ARE  YOU? — 
THE  STORIES  OF  THREE  HIGH-SCHOOL  GIRLS  WHO 
MADE  GOOD — ACQUIRING  A  GOOD  VOCABULARY — 
DEVELOPING  A  PLEASANT  AND  CORRECT  WAY  OF 
SPEAKING — SALES  WORK  AS  A  CAREER  FOR  GIRLS — 
HOW  TO  DIVERT  PROFESSIONAL  KNOWLEDGE  INTO 
HIGHLY  PAID  SALESWORK — A  COLLEGE  GIRL  WHO 
MADE  GOOD  AT  WANAMAKER's — HOW  A  STENOGRA- 
PHER MIGHT  GET  INTO  ADVERTISING  OR  ADVANCED 
SALES  WORK — HOW  A  DEPARTMENT  STORE  SALES  GIRL 
MIGHT  IMPROVE  HER  POSITION  —  HOW  AN  UNED- 
UCATED GIRL  CAN  QUALIFY  HERSELF  TO  BE  A  $50-A- 
WEEK  GIRL — THE  $50-A-WEEK  GIRL  MUST  RECOG- 
NIZE AND  COMBAT  CERTAIN  FEMININE  TRAITS. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Wanted— A  Man  With  Executive  Ability 

Frontispiece 

"Ain't  it  a  Fright,  This  Hot  Air  You  Get  from 
These  People 44 

Traveling  Salesman  (to  Clerk) — "Good  Morn- 
ing, I  Should  Like  to  See  the  Proprietor". .     70 

You  Feel  as  if  You  Ought  to  Propose  Marriage 
to  Her 98 

"It  Looks  Strange  to  You  Because  You  Have 
Been  Wearing  a  Soft  Hat 118 

Mr.  Edison  in  His  Study 138 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A 
SALESMAN 

INTRODUCTION 

FROM  the  time  we  entered  the  war  until 
its  conclusion  the  selling  of  goods  was 
regarded  as  a  more  or  less  non-essential  oc- 
cupation. I  recall  that  a  New  York  evening 
newspaper  took  occasion  to  condemn  edito- 
rially the  capable  salesman  who,  in  war  times, 
persuaded  people  to  buy  articles  that  were 
not  indispensable.  The  process  of  reasoning 
which  led  to  such  condemnation  results  logi- 
cally in  the  conclusion  that  the  same  salesman 
can  be  exceedingly  useful  during  the  first 
ten  years  of  peace.  This  period  will  be 
marked  by  numerous  industrial  and  financial 
readjustments,  some  of  which  will  tend  to 
stimulate  and  others  to  retard  business.  The 
banker  has  the  important  responsibility  of 
dealing  with  the  financial  phenomena  that 

13 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

follow  the  various  national  and  international 
reactions  to  the  war,  but  it  is  probable  that 
the  greatest  responsibility  for  our  national 
prosperity  during  the  first  ten  years  of  peace 
will  fall  on  the  shoulders  of  our  salesmen. 
Salesmanship  will  attain  a  new  dignity,  and 
will  offer  greater  opportunities  than  ever 
before. 

Thomas  A.  Edison,  with  his  characteristic 
habit  of  epitomizing  in  a  few  terse  words  the 
most  complex  of  problems,  has  recently  said: 

Every  business  man  should  speed  up  his  sales  or- 
ganization. The  salesmen  of  the  country  can  do 
more  than  anyone  else  to  keep  the  wheels  of  industry 
turning  at  full  speed.  The  salesman  had'  to  take  a 
back  seat  during  the  war,  but  his  time  has  now  come. 
Give  him  a  chance. 

Mr.  Edison  has  not  overstated  the  impor- 
tance of  salesmanship  in  the  post  bellum 
period,  of  ten  years  or  more,  that  is  destined 
to  mark  an  entirely  new  epoch  in  the  indus- 
trial history  of  this  country. 

Under  normal  conditions,  supply  is  nearly 
u 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

always  ahead  of  natural  demand.  Aside 
from  crop  shortage  and  other  abnormal  in- 
fluences beyond  the  bounds  of  human  control, 
salesmanship  is  the  most  important  instru- 
mentality for  the  stimulation  of  demand  to 
a  point  that  insures  a  profit  to  the  producer. 

In  normal  or  subnormal  times,  salesman- 
ship is  the  neck  of  the  jug  that  holds  the 
profits  of  commerce,  and  those  profits  ordi- 
narily flow  into  the  pockets  of  industry  no 
faster  than  salesmanship  pours  them. 

I  can  think  of  scarcely  anything  that  is 
worse  form  than  to  quote  one's  self,  but  I 
may  perhaps  be  pardoned  for  calling  atten- 
tion to  a  thought  of  my  own,  in  concordance 
with  Mr.  Edison's,  although  expressed  less 
succinctly,  which  appeared  in  the  little  vol- 
ume, "If  I  Were  Twenty-one,"  written  be- 
fore we  entered  the  war.  This  was  the 
thought: 

With  certain  exceptions,  the  business  of  this  country 
rests  largely  on  a  demand  which  is  artificially  created 
by  salesmanship.  But  for  the  stimulus  of  salesman- 
ship that  forces  upon  us  new  fashions  in  wearing  ap- 

15 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

parel,  half  the  cotton  fields  would  be  fallow  ground, 
and  half  the  silkworms  and  sheep  would  be  out  of 
work.  But  for  the  salesmanship  that  forces  on  to  us 
new  kinds  of  mechanical  devices,  half  of  the  mines 
would  be  closed  and  half  of  the  furnaces  would  be 
cold.  But  for  the  feverish  business  activity  that  sales- 
manship inspires,  half  the  freight  cars  would  be  rust- 
ing and  rotting  in  railroad  switch  yards. 

Having  in  mind  the  demand  upon  our  in- 
dustries and  agriculture  that  war  has  made, 
and  considering  the  needs  that  Europe's  four 
years  of  industrial  inactivity  have  created, 
the  foregoing  may  seem  a  far-fetched  theory, 
but  I  feel  every  confidence  that,  within  the 
first  year  of  peace  and  at  frequent  intervals 
during  the  first  ten  years,  there  will  be  lit- 
erally millions  whose  bread  and  butter  and 
savings  bank  accounts  will  depend  on  the 
ability  and  industry  of  OUT  salesmen.  There 
will  be  men  working  in  the  iron  mines  and 
steel  mills  who  would  be  idle  if  hard-working 
salesmen  were  not  on  the  job.  There  will  be 
herdsmen  dipping  sheep  and  "  darkeys " 

16 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

picking  cotton  who  would  be  loafing  if  sales- 
men and  advertising  men  were  not  actively 
practicing  their  related  professions.  As  Mr. 
Edison  has  said,  "  the  salesman's  time  has 


come." 


If  I  were  a  soldier,  mustered  out  of  service, 
or  a  war  worker,  returning  to  civilian  pur- 
suits, and  not  quite  certain  what  career  of- 
fered me  the  best  opportunities,  I  should 
seriously  consider  salesmanship.  If  I  were 
already  a  salesman,  I  should  endeavor  to 
become  a  better  one.  The  rewards  of  good 
salesmanship  are  going  to  be  high. 

A  great  many  persons  believe  that  good 
salesmen,  like  good  poets,  are  born  and  not 
made.  A  smaller  number  hold  the  opinion 
that  certain  psychological  formulae,  if  consis- 
tently followed,  will  enable  practically  any 
person  of  average  intelligence  to  become  a 
successful  salesman.  It  seems  to  me  that 
neither  view  reflects  a  true  comprehension  of 
salesmanship. 

Speaking  in   a  broad  sense,   nearly   all 

2  17 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

human  effort,  other  than  manual  labor,  is 
salesmanship.  When  a  young  man  woos 
a  maid  he  is  trying  to  sell  his  society.  When 
he  seeks  a  job  he  is  trying  to  sell  his  services. 
When  a  clergyman  exhorts  his  congregation 
he  is  attempting  to  sell  salvation.  When  a 
politician  runs  for  office  he  is  making  an  ef- 
fort to  sell  his  theories  of  government  to  the 
voters.  It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that 
successful  clergymen  and  politicians  are  usu- 
ally good  salesmen  of  merchandise  when  they 
turn  their  minds  to  that  pursuit. 

Salesmanship  is  not  alone  the  art  of  mak- 
ing people  want  to  buy.  It  is  also  the  art  of 
making  it  very  difficult  for  them  to  resist 
buying. 

The  training  of  a  salesman  is  a  process  of 
absorption  from  experience.  If  the  process 
is  unconscious  it  will  be  slow  and  the  results 
limited.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  salesman 
draws  avidly  upon  his  daily  experience,  and 
translates  it  into  feasible  rules  of  action,  he 
will  make  rapid  progress,  and  there  are  prac- 

18 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

tically  no  limits  to  the  growth  of  his  knowl- 
edge and  the  perfection  of  his  technique. 

The  object  of  this  book  is  to  deal  with 
numerous  practical  phases  of  salesmanship 
in  a  way  which  will  suggest  the  psychology 
involved  without  propounding  psychological 
formulas.  If  it  succeeds  in  stimulating  the 
salesman  reader  to  an  analysis  of  his  daily  ex- 
perience, in  the  light  of  the  suggestions  made, 
it  will  have  accomplished  its  object,  and  jus- 
tified its  title,  since  the  training  of  a  salesman 
is  coincident  with  and  derived  from  his  own 
experience. 

Inasmuch  as  the  successful  practice  of 
salesmanship  is  quite  likely  to  expand  a 
salesman's  career  to  a  point  where  it  involves 
other  important  branches  of  business,  and  as 
this  fact  is  one  of  the  alluring  rewards  of 
successful  salesmanship,  I  have  included 
three  chapters  which  depart  somewhat  from 
the  fundamentals  of  salesmanship,  but  never- 
theless deal  with  principles  and  practices  of 
business  that  are  likely  to  be  of  importance 

19 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

to  the  man  who  expects  to  become  a  success- 
ful salesman. 

It  should  be  understood  that  I  use  the  term 
salesman  in  a  generic  sense.  In  writing  the 
contents  of  this  book,  I  have  had  the  sales- 
woman very  prominently  in  mind  and  I  sin- 
cerdy  hope  that  the  chapters  which  follow 
may  prove  helpful  to  the  woman  who  decides 
to  adopt  the  selling  of  merchandise  as  her 
profession. 


SIZING  UP  A  CUSTOMER 

THE  other  afternoon  I  sat  in  a  private  par- 
lor at  the  Waldorf-Astoria  Hotel  and  inter- 
viewed twelve  -candidates  for  the  position  of 
traveling  salesman.  They  came  in  at  inter- 
vals and  each  was  given  an  opportunity  to 
sell  himself  to  our  sales  manager,  our.  assis- 
tant sales  manager  and  myself. 

Several  of  the  applicants  said  that  they 
understood  psychology  thoroughly,  and 
nearly  all  of  them  stated  that  they  could  read 
character  almost  at  a  glance. 

Five  years  ago  some  of  these  same  men 
who  now  claim  to  be  psychologists  probably 
thought  psychology  was  a  disease  or  a  secret 
society,  and  if  anyone  had  asked  them  about 
character  reading  at  that  time  a  majority 
would  very  likely  have  put  it  in  the  same  class 
as  telling  fortunes  with  tea  leaves.  All  of 
which  goes  to  show  how  the  world  has  pro- 
gressed in  the  past  five  years.  Nowadays  it's 

21 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

mighty  hard  to  find  a  salesman  who  doesn't 
claim  to  be  a  psychologist  or  a  character 
reader  or  both. 

A  few  weeks  ago  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
talking  to  the  Baltimore  Advertising  Men's 
Club  on  "  Salesmanship."  I  don't  know  much 
about  salesmanship,  but  I  like  to  talk  about 
it.  On  this  occasion  I  happened  to  say  that  I 
didn't  believe  a  salesman  could  read  a  cus- 
tomer's character.  After  the  meeting,  dur- 
ing those  pleasant  moments  when  people 
come  up  and  shake  your  hand  and  tell  you 
how  much  they  enjoyed  your  talk,  a  square- 
toed  gentleman  said  to  me:  "  I  see  you  don't 
agree  with  Edison  and  Hugh  Chalmers." 

I  was  startled.  To  disagree  with  Mr.  Edi- 
son and  Mr.  Chalmers  in  respect  of  a  subject 
on  which  they  both  agree  seemed  rather  pre- 
sumptuous. Falteringly,  I  inquired :  "How's 
that?"  The  gentleman  replied:  "You  say 
that  character  can't  be  read;  they  say  it  can." 

I  had  to  admit  I  would  believe  Mr.  Edison 
if  he  said  he  could  read  character  and  that, 

22 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

while  I  didn't  know  Mr.  Chalmers  very  well, 
I'd  also  take  his  word  at  par. 

The  gentleman  continued:  "Edison  says 
the  human  machine  will  receive  closer  atten- 
tion in  the  future  than  any  other  piece  of 
machinery.  Chalmers  says  that  the  study 
of  man  is  the  most  profitable  study  in  the 
world,  or  words  to  that  effect." 

What  could  I  say  to  that,  except  to  ex- 
press my  hearty  concurrence  with  the  views 
of  Mr.  Edison  and  Mr.  Chalmers,  which  is 
precisely  what  I  did  do? 

"  Then  I  misunderstood  your  remarks 
about  reading  character,"  the  gentleman 
persisted. 

"  No,"  I  replied,  "  I  will  stick  to  my  state- 
ment that  no  one  can  read  character,  although 
one  may  read  the  marks  of  degeneracy  or 
wrong-doing.  I  don't  believe  either  Mr.  Edi- 
son or  Mr.  Chalmers  believes  that  he  can 
read  a  normal  man's  character.  Through 
long  association  with  a  man  they  may  feel 
that  they  can  form  a  dependable  estimate  of 

23 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

his  character,  but  I  don't  think  they  seriously 
believe  they  can  fathom  a  man's  character 
in  a  slight  acquaintance  with  him." 

"  Listen  here,"  the  Baltimore  man  said. 
"Let  me  ask  you  this  question.  If  a  very 
dignified  and  well  dressed  man  entered  your 
store,  would  you  slap  him  on  the  back  and 
try  to  joke  with  him?  " 

"No,  I  would  not,"  I  conceded.  I  might 
have  added  that  I  wouldn't  hit  Charlie  Chap- 
lin on  the  back,  or  try  to  joke  with  him,  if 
he  came  into  my  store,  but  I  didn't  happen 
to  think  about  that  until  too  late  to  say  it. 

"  Well,  then,"  he  triumphantly  asserted, 
"you  practically  admit  that  you  do  believe 
there  is  something  in  character  reading." 

Unfortunately  the  discussion  stopped 
there,  as  I  had  to  shake  the  hand  of  another 
gentleman,  who  agreed  with  me  that  you 
can't  read  character.  I  don't  know  whether 
he  had  been  against  a  gold  brick  man,  or  how 
he  had  reached  his  opinion,  but  I  am  pretty 
sure  he  is  right. 

24 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

Just  think  of  it,  if  you  will.  A  prominent 
and  successful  business  man  believes,  or  at 
least  seems  to  believe,  that  he  is  making 
progress  in  character  reading  because  he  re- 
frains from  poking  a  frock-coated  customer 
in  the  ribs.  A  frock  coat,  a  top  hat  and  a 
long  face  don't  denote  character.  They  de- 
note either  pose  or  temperament.  At  one 
time  I  made  a  practice  of  getting  acquainted 
with  and  studying  crooks.  The  biggest 
crook  I  ever  knew  wore  habitually  a  frock 
coat,  a  high  collar,  a  black  string  cravat  and 
a  black  slouch  hat.  He  looked  like  a  Mis- 
souri or  Mississippi  Congressman,  but  if  you 
had  walked  behind  him  and  said  in  a  gruff 
voice:  "  The  chief  wants  to  see  you,"  he 
would  have  replied,  without  a  moment's  hes- 
itation: "That's  all  right,  officer,  I'll  go  right 
along  with  you;  I  won't  make  you  any  trou- 
ble ;  you  don't  need  to  handcuff  me." 

I  grant  that  a  salesman  shouldn't  get  im- 
mediately familiar  and  facetious  with  a 
frock-coated  man,  but  I  also  contend  that  he 

25 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

shouldn't  take  liberties  with  a  man  who  wears 
overalls.  One  of  the  most  dignified  and 
punctilious  men  I  ever  knew  was  a  gentle- 
man who  changed  his  linen  twice  a  month 
and  probably  bathed  less  frequently.  Inci- 
dentally he  was  worth  about  half  a  million 
dollars. 

The  foregoing  merely  serves  to  lead  up 
to  the  greatest  and  the  most  common  sin  of 
retail  salesmen.  I  call  it  their  belief  in  their 
ability  to  "  pick  winners." 

You  walk  into  a  Fifth  Avenue  store.  The 
salesman  sizes  you  up  for  a  live  one  or  a 
dead  one,  as  the  case  may  be.  It  doesn't  mat- 
ter what  you  are.  It  only  matters  how  the 
salesman  happens  to  classify  you  and,  after 
he  has  done  so — read  your  character,  as  he 
probably  calls  it — nothing  that  you  can  do 
will  change  his?  opinion  of  you.  If  he  sized 
you  up  as  a  dead  one,  but  you  nevertheless 
buy  something,  he  is  more  than  likely  to  con- 
clude that  you  were  embarrassed  by  his  aloof 
attitude  and  made  a  purchase  to  save  your 

26 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

face.  Almost  never  will  he  admit  that  he 
sized  you  up  wrongly — in  other  words,  mis- 
read your  character. 

I  am  interested  in  three  small  retail  stores 
and  I  am  confident  that  their  aggregate 
business  would  increase  50  per  cent,  if  the 
salesmen  could  be  persuaded  that  they  can't 
"  size  up  a  customer." 

I  have  a  friend  who  conducts  a  specialty 
shop  on  Fifth  Avenue.  He  says:  "I  can't 
break  my  salesmen  of  the  habit  of  trying 
to  size  up  the  people  who  come  to  the  store. 
If  they  think  a  visitor  is  a  live  one,  they  are 
good  salesmen.  If  they  think  he  is  a  dead 
one,  they  are  poor  salesmen.  They  don't 
seem  to  realize  that  it's  a  part  of  their  duty 
to  try  to  turn  dead  ones  into  live  ones." 

"  Turning  dead  ones  into  live  ones  "  is  the 
most  important  and  the  most  highly  paid 
branch  of  salesmanship.  Wholesale  sales- 
men realize  that  fact,  but  comparatively  few 
retail  salesmen  seem  to  be  conscious  of  it. 

A  good  many  years  ago  I  was  standing  in 

27 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

a  cigar  store  in  a  Western  town.  The  cigar 
store  was  right  next  door  to  a  toy  shop.  The 
time  was  a  week  or  so  before  Christmas.  A 
couple  of  country  women  entered  the  cigar 
store.  Just  inside  the  threshold,  they  paused 
and  looked  around  in  confusion.  One  of 
them  stammered:  "I  guess  we're  in  the 
wrong  place;  we  want  to  go  to  that  store 
where  they  sell  toys." 

The  salesman  came  from  behind  the  coun- 
ter and  politely  said:  "We  don't  sell  toys 
here,  but  a  good  many  of  the  ladies  are  in- 
terested in  our  carved  pipes — carved  in  the 
Black  Forest,  you  know.  The  toy  store  is 
just  next  door,  but  before  you  go,  I'd  like  to 
show  you  one  of  the  pipes.  It's  really  rather 
a  curiosity — more  interesting  to  children 
than  a  good  many  toys — and,  of  course,  a 
gift  that  any  man  will  appreciate." 

While  he  was  saying  all  this,  he  was  get- 
ting out  the  pipe.  The  women  looked  at  each 
other  doubtfully  and  then  at  the  pipe.  One 
of  them  pointed  to  the  distorted  features  of 

28 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

a  gnome  carved  on  the  bowl  of  the  pipe  and 
said  to  her  companion:  "I  wonder  if  Albert 
wouldn't  like  a  pipe  like  that?" 

"Sure  he  would,"  the  latter  agreed. 

"And  it  would  tickle  little  Al,  too, 
wouldn't  it? "  the  first  woman  continued. 
"  He'd  get  as  much  fun  out  of  a  pipe  like  that 
as  his  pa  would.  How  much  is  it,  Mister?  " 

A  moment  later  the  sale  was  closed  and 
those  two  women,  who  had  blundered  into  a 
cigar  store  under  the  mistaken  impression 
that  it  was  a  toy  shop,  went  out  with  a  rather 
expensive  carved  pipe.  They  were  dead 
ones  when  they  came  in,  but  the  salesman 
turned  them  into  live  ones. 

It  would  have  been  much  easier  for  the 
salesman  merely  to  say:  "  Next  door,  ladies," 
as  soon  as  they  revealed  that  they  sought  the 
toy  shop.  The  chances  of  making  a  sale  to 
them  seemed  to  me  exceedingly  remote,  and 
I  admit  that  I  thought  the  salesman  was 
wasting  his  time  in  attempting  to  sell  them 
a  pipe.  That  salesman  was  different  from 

29 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

the  average  salesman.  I  happen  to  know 
that  he  isn't  a  salesman  any  more,  and,  if  he 
owed  me  a  hundred  thousand  dollars,  I 
shouldn't  worry  at  all  about  being  able  to 
collect  it. 

The  difference  between  that  salesman  and 
the  average  salesman  is  a  difference  which 
the  latter  must  remove  before  he  can  become 
anything  more  than  an  average  salesman. 

I  know  a  retail  salesman  who  literally 
spends  hours  every  day  in  polishing  his  finger 
nails,  but  is  reluctant  to  "waste  time"  on  a 
shopper  who,  in  his  opinion,  "  has  no  inten- 
tion of  buying." 

The  courage  to  tackle  "  dead  ones  "  and 
the  willingness  to  waste  time  on  them  are 
requisites  of  high-grade  retail  salesmanship. 
If  I  were  a  retail  salesman,  I  would  ruth- 
lessly eradicate  from  my  mind  any  idea  I 
might  be  inclined  to  have  that  I  could  pick 
"  live  ones." 

I  used  to  know  a  Swede  who  owned  ten 
sections  of  land  in  Texas.  One  spring,  he 

30 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

shipped  ten  carloads  of  steers  to  Chicago. 
He  came  along  with  the  cattle.  His  boots 
hurt  him  and,  after  he  had  received  a  cheque 
for  the  steers,  he  took  off  his  boots  and  went 
downtown  in  his  bare  feet. 

Barefooted,  wearing  cheap  blue  overalls 
and  a  hickory  shirt,  and  strong  with  the  odor 
of  his  own  unwashed  body,  as  well  as  the 
pungent  smell  of  his  cattle,  he  wandered  hes- 
itatingly into  a  large  wholesale  hardware 
house.  A  salesman  "  sized  him  up."  "  What 
do  you  want,  old  man? "  the  salesman  pa- 
tronizingly inquired. 

"  I  tank  I  get  a  little  bob  wire." 

"  How  much  you  want,  Ole?  " 
'  Well,  I  tank  I  yust  fence  every  ting  with 
tree  wires.  I  got  ten  sections.  That  make 
forty  mile  to  fence  and  tree  times  forty  make 
hundred;  twenty.  I  ain't  yust  know  how 
many  spools  of  bob  wire  that  make,  but  I 
know  I  want  hundred  twenty  mile  of  wire." 

The  salesman  called  the  police.  He 
thought  he  had  a  crazy  man  on  his  hands.  It 

31 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

was  only  when  the  Swede  was  searched  for 
weapons  and  they  found  his  bank-book  and 
Glay,  Robinson  &  Company's  cheque  for  ten 
carloads  of  steers  that  the  salesman  realized 
he  hadn't  "  sized  up  "  this  Swede  rancher 
with  absolute  accuracy. 

In  New  York  City  are  two  well-known 
department  stores,  which  may  fairly  be  re- 
garded as  rivals.  To  mention  either  by  name 
would  probably  be  resented  by  their  respec- 
tive managers,  as  department  stores  are  pro- 
verbially sensitive  to  criticism.  Therefore, 
let  us  call  one  X,  and  the  other  Y. 

An  authority  on  retail  merchandising  said 
to  me  the  other  day: 

"  Do  you  know  how  to  create  the  most 
efficient  department  store  in  the  world  in  less 
than  twenty-four  hours? " 

I  admitted  that  I  did  not  and  said  that  I 
was  willing  to  bite. 

"  It's  perfectly  simple,"  he  replied.  "  Give 
X's  advertising  department  to  Y,  or  transfer 
Y's  sales  force  to  X  and  you  would  have  the 

32 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

most  efficient  retail  sales  organization  in  the 
world.  Until  you  do  that  the  Marshall  Field 
store  in  Chicago  has  them  both  skinned  on 
merchandising  methods." 

I  subsequently  made  inquiries  and,  so  far 
as  my  inquiries  extend,  it  would  appear  that 
the  weight  of  competent  opinion  is  to  the 
effect  that  the  advertising  of  X  is  consid- 
erably better  than  Y's,  while  the  latter's  sales 
force  is  regarded  as  more  resourceful  and 
effective  than  the  sales  people  at  the  X  store. 

Care  is  taken  in  the  selection  of  employees 
at  the  store  of  Mr.  X — they  are  fully  as  well 
paid  as  the  employees  of  Y,  and  I  am  in- 
formed that  Mr.  X  spends  a  good  deal  of 
money  in  teaching,  or  attempting  to  teach, 
salesmanship  to  his  employees.  Undoubt- 
edly, he  has  a  great  many  good  salesmen  and 
saleswomen.  I  have  come  across  some  of 
them  in  my  occasional  visits  to  his  New  York 
store.  On  the  other  hand,  I  think  that  the 
most  conspicuous  examples  of  bad  salesman- 
ship I  have  ever  observed  were  encountered 

3  33 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

in  the  X  store.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that 
the  desire  of  Mr.  X  to  give  good  service  to 
his  patrons  may  possibly  have  led  his  sub- 
ordinates to  impress  physical  alertness  on  the 
sales  people  to  the  neglect  of  some  of  the 
other  qualities  which  good  sales  people  should 
possess. 

Another  theory  is  that  perhaps  the  goods 
of  the  X  store  are  so  effectively  advertised 
that  the  less  intelligent  and  ambitious  of  his 
sales  people  unconsciously  degenerate  into 
mere  order  takers. 

Possibly  you  will  say:  "Why  theorize; 
why  not  ask  Mr.  X  or  some  of  his  assistants 
if  it  is  true,  and,  if  so,  why  the  salesmanship 
at  their  store  isn't  as'  good  as  the  salesman- 
ship at  other  high-grade  New  York  stores 
or  as  at  Marshall  Field's,  in  Chicago? " 

I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Mr. 
X.  I  know  how  thoroughly  he  is  in  touch 
with  every  important  phase  of  his  business. 
I  am  quite  well  acquainted  with  one  of  his 
assistants,  who  is  a  keenly  intelligent  student 

34 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

of  merchandising.  Nevertheless,  I  feel  that 
it  would  be  quite  useless  to  ask  either  of  them 
why  the  salesmanship  in  their  store  isn't  so 
good  as  the  salesmanship  in  some  of  the  other 
New  York  stores.  I'll  venture  to  say  that 
they  don't  know  the  cause.  It's  easy  to  criti- 
cise, but  it  isn't  always  easy  to  discover  and 
remove  the  causes  for  criticism.  At  this  par- 
ticular moment  I  am  personally  in  a  slump 
and  at  least  five  of  my  assistants  are  likewise. 
All  of  us  know  it,  but  none  of  us  knows  the 
cause.  When  we  get  out  of  this  slump,  if  we 
ever  do,  we  probably  shan't  know  how  we 
did  it. 

An  explanation  which  retail  merchants 
frequently  make  to  a  manufacturer  for  the 
poor  salesmanship  applied  to  the  manufac- 
turer's goods  is  this:  "  We  are  here  to  serve 
our  patrons ;  to  give  them  what  they  want — 
not  to  teach  them  what  they  ought  to  want." 
In  other  words,  according  to  this  theory,  if 
I,  for  example,  ask  a  boot  and  shoe  merchant 
for  a  pair  of  shoes,  similar  to  the  ones  I  hap- 

35 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

pen  to  be  wearing,  and  the  latter  have  leather 
soles,  it  is  no  part  of  the  retailer's  function  to 
familiarize  me  with  the  new  composition 
soles  which  are  coming  into  use.  Instead,  it 
is  his  duty  to  sell  me  a  pair  of  shoes  with 
leather  soles,  even  though  he  may  have  to 
charge  me  more  and  make  a  smaller  per- 
centage of  profit  himself  than  would  be  the 
case  if  he  had  converted  me  to  the  new  com- 
position soles,  which  are  as  sightly  as  leather 
soles  and  some  of  which,  I  am  informed,  wear 
as  well  as  leather. 

The  buying  public  is  partly  responsible  for 
this  attitude  on  the  part  of  retail  merchants 
and  retail  salesmen.  The  time-worn  jest 
about  the  druggist  who  tries  to  sell  you 
"  something  just  as  good  "  and  the  warnings 
of  some  advertisers  against  "  attempted  sub- 
stitutions "  have  led  a  certain  percentage  of 
the  buying  public  to  feel  that  one  should  be 
suspicious  of  a  tradesman's  "  selling  talk." 
This  is  perhaps  a  reason  why  there  are  so 
many  retail  salesmen  who  use  practically  no 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

"  selling  talk,"  even  after  they  have  "  sized 
up  "  a  customer  to  their  satisfaction. 

In  my  own  case,  I  have  an  ingrained  dis- 
trust of  what  druggists  say  about  their  wares, 
although  reason  reassures  me  that  the  drug- 
gist's assertion  that  he  has  "  something  just 
as  good  "  is  probably,  in  most  cases,  fully 
justified  by  the  facts.  The  magazines  have 
told  us  enough  about  patent  medicines  to 
convince  us,  I  think,  that  the  apothecary  is 
frequently  warranted  in  saying  he  has 
"  something  just  as  good  "  when  patrons  ask 
for  proprietary  remedies.  The  druggist  is  a 
professional  man,  who  has  a  scientific  knowl- 
edge of  much  of  the  merchandise  he  sells,  and 
is  scarcely  to  be  blamed  for  his  disposition  to 
substitute  his  own  less  costly  and  more  profit- 
able concoction  for  an  advertised  nostrum. 
It  has  been  my  experience  that  druggists 
rarely  suggest  a  substitute  for  a  truly  meri- 
torious advertised  article,  but  notwithstand- 
ing this,  I  am  almost  invariably  distrustful 
of  a  druggist's  advice.  However,  I  am  not 

37 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

similarly  suspicious  of  the  advice  of  other 
merchants,  although  most  of  them  appear  to 
think  I  am,  and  seem  to  be  reluctant  to  ad- 
vise me  about  their  goods  except  in  the  hack- 
neyed phrases  of  commendation  which  the  law 
says  are  not  fraudulent,  even  though  applied 
to  the  most  worthless  article.  If  I  am  a  mer- 
chant, the  law  lets  me  say:  "  These  are  good 
goods,"  no  matter  how  inferior  the  goods  may 
be,  but  when  my  untruthf ulness  takes  a  more 
specific  form,  I  am  likely  to  get  into  trouble. 
In  selling  worthy  merchandise,  the  average 
retail  salesman  does  not  say  a  great  deal  more 
than  the  law  would  permit  him  to  say  about 
unworthy  merchandise.  That  is  one  of  the 
principal  discouragements  which  attend  the 
manufacture  of  really  fine  merchandise.  It 
is  also  one  of  the  principal  reasons  why  the 
magazines  carry  so  much  advertising.  The 
advertising  solicitor  says  to  the  manufac- 
turer of  a  meritorious  article:  "  Advertise  in 
the  magazines  and  create  a  demand  for  your 
goods,"  which  is  largely  another  way  of  say- 

38 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

ing:  "  Advertise  in  the  magazines  and  thus 
overcome  the  inertia,  indifference,  mental 
slothfulness  and  lack  of  imagination  which 
are  characteristic  of  the  average  retail 
salesman." 

When  the  manufacturer  has  advertised 
sufficiently  to  get  the  public  to  walk  into  the 
retail  merchant's  store  and  demand  the  man- 
ufacturer's goods,  the  merchant  will  ordina- 
rily try  to  meet  the  demand  and  will  say  that 
he  is  thus  giving  "  service."  In  advance  of 
that  time,  the  small  merchant  too  frequently 
says :  "  I  know  you  make  good  goods,  but 
there  isn't  enough  demand  yet  to  justify  me 
in  carrying  your  line."  Many  small  mer- 
chants do  not  realize  that  an  important  phase 
of  the  "  service  "  which  a  merchant  should 
give  his  patrons  consists  in  discovering  and 
pushing  new  and  desirable  merchandise.  The 
big  merchant,  on  the  other  hand,  usually  does 
appreciate  this  duty  to  the  public,  and,  inas- 
much as  we  have  been  speaking  of  the  X 
store  in  New  York  City,  I  might  say  that  I 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

do  not  happen  to  think  of  any  retail  merchant 
who  has  been  more  active  than  Mr.  X  in  the 
introduction  of  new  and  desirable  merchan- 
dise, or  more  liberal  in  advertising  expendi- 
tures to  create  a  demand  for  it. 

I  am  sure  there  are  few,  if  any,  retail  mer- 
chants who  have  a  broader  conception  of 
merchandising  service  than  Mr.  X  possesses, 
and  if  it  is  a  fact  that  he  has  a  larger  per- 
centage of  order-taking  automatons  among 
his  sales  people  than  some  of  the  other  New 
York  stores,  I  am  sure  it  does  not  result  from 
any  belief  on  his  part  that  a  retail  merchant's 
function  consists  solely  in  supplying  the  pub- 
lic with  the  goods  it  demands.  The  reason 
must  be  searched  for  elsewhere. 

Possibly  the  employment  department  has 
standards  of  selection  which  tend  to  exclude 
the  type  of  salesman  who  has  temperament 
and  imagination. 

Possibly  the  persons  who  teach  salesman- 
ship to  X  employees  have,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, emphasized  the  mechanics  of 

40 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

retail  salesmanship  and  subordinated  the 
principles  of  salesmanship. 

Possibly,  as  previously  suggested,  the  ad- 
vertising of  the  X  store  is  so  enticing  that 
a  majority  of  its  customers  are  sold  before 
they  enter  the  store,  with  the  result  that 
the  sales  people  do  not  get  sufficient  practice 
in  salesmanship. 

Possibly  it  is  a  combination  of  all  three 
causes,  plus  another  cause  that,  from  my 
knowledge  of  Mr.  X,  I  can  well  believe 
might  have  an  influence  on  the  policy  of  his 
store  towards  its  employees.  I  don't  believe 
that  he  would  ever  abandon  the  idea  of  cre- 
ating something  worth  while  from  any  man 
or  woman  who  seemed  to  be  willing  to  make 
good.  Even  though  a  salesman  appeared  to 
get  very  little  benefit  from  the  instruction 
which  he  received,  I  can  imagine  that  Mr.  X 
would  be  inclined  to  give  him  another1  chance, 
and  still  another  and  another.  Somehow  I 
can't  imagine  Mr.  X  "  firing  "  anybody  who 
is  honest,  decent  and  industrious. 

41 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

At  the  risk  of  obscuring  my  theme,  I  have 
digressed  into  a  somewhat  extended  discus- 
sion of  the  quality  of  salesmanship  practiced 
at  this  New  York  store,  for  the  purpose  of 
suggesting,  if  not  actually  illustrating,  how 
difficult  it  is  to  teach  good  salesmanship  to 
every  member  of  a  large  sales  force.  You 
can  successfully  teach  arithmetic  to  a  large 
group  of  people.  When  you  say  to  an  arith- 
metic class  that  six  times  six  are  thirty-six, 
your  pupils  accept  your  statement  without 
making  the  mental  reservation  that  some- 
times six  times  six  are  sixty-six.  It  is  com- 
paratively easy  to  teach  any  subject  which 
permits  immediate  and  convincing  proof  of 
every  true  statement  that  you  make,  but  your 
difficulty  grows  as  you  progress  into  subjects 
that  offer  an  opportunity  for  a  difference  of 
opinion.  Such  difficulties  reach  their  peak  in 
teaching  salesmanship.  Every  retail  sales- 
man has  occasion  to  buy  various  articles  at  re- 
tail for  his  own  personal  use  and,  unless  he 
has  a  deep  interest  in  the  subject  of  sales- 

42 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

manship,  is  likely  to  be  annoyed  if  he  feels 
that  a  strange  salesman  is  giving  him  "  the 
work,"  or  a  "  canned  sales  talk,"  or  whatever 
he  calls  a  carefully  thought-out  selling  talk. 
He  feels  a  good  deal  as  Billy  Sunday  would 
probably  feel  if  some  other  Evangelist  mis- 
took him  for  a  sinful  "  cuss  "  and  tried  to 
convert  him. 

The  salesman  relates  such  an  episode  to 
his  sister  at  the  dinner  table  that  evening, 
and  remarks :  "  You'd  think  he'd  a  had 
enough  gumption  not  to  size  me  up  for  a 
boob,  wouldn't  you?  " 

Then,  perhaps,  sister  tells  about  a 
"  gabby  "  saleswoman  who  got  on  her  nerves 
that  afternoon  and  gave  her  a  headache. 

"  Ain't  it  a  fright,"  they  both  agree,  "  this 
hot  air  you  get  from  these  people  who  think 
they  can  talk  you  into  buying  something 
whether  you  want  it  or  not?  They  don't 
know  how  to  size  up  a  customer.  They  don't 
know  when  to  talk  and  when  to  keep  quiet." 

The  retail  salesman,  like  most  of  us,  is 

43 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

prone  to  base  broad  general  conclusions  on 
his  own  private  opinions,  without  taking  into 
account  the  fact  that  his  opinion  may  not, 
for  various  reasons,  coincide  with  the  gen- 
eral public's  opinion.  He  forgets  that  his 
estimate  of  another  salesman's  methods, 
when  directed  against  himself,  may  be  tinc- 
tured with  professional  jealousy  and  accord- 
ingly that  the  effect  produced  on  him  is  per- 
haps very  different  than  the  effect  produced 
on  the  average  person.  He  forgets  that  sis- 
ter may  not  have  been  entirely  sincere  in  her 
shopping  expedition  that  afternoon  and  that 
possibly  her  criticism  of  the  "  gabby  "  sales- 
woman had  its  inspiration  in  his  own  recital 
and  is  merely  a  comforting  justification  to 
herself  of  her  non-purchase  of  an  article 
which  she  had  no  intention  of  buying,  nor  any 
ability  to  pay  for  if  she  had  bought  it.  But, 
most  of  all,  he  is  likely  to  overlook  the  fact 
that  the  "  selling  talk  "  which  he  resented 
was  a  poor  selling  talk,  or  poorly  made, 
or  both,  and  that  it  does  not  justify  the  con- 

44 


AIN  T  IT  A  FRIGHT,  THIS  HOT  AIR  YOU  GET  FROM  THESE  PEOPLE 


•  -<•    :«..:,•••.«..• 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

damnation  of  a  good  selling  talk  when  prop- 
erly presented. 

I  talk  to  and  with  retail  salesmen  a  good 
deal.  Almost  always  they  agree  with  what 
I  suggest,  except  that  they  generally  include 
this  reservation :  "  That  will  work  with  a  good 
many  people,  but  it  won't  work  with 
everybody." 

"  If  it  works  with  a  large  majority,  what 
do  we  need  to  care  if  it  doesn't  work  with 
everyone?  "  is  usually  what  I  say  in  reply. 

Almost  invariably  the  retail  salesman,  or 
salesmen,  will  argue  in  effect:  "  Why  not 
size  up  every  customer  and  use  your  method 
where  I  think  it  will  work  and  some  differ- 
ent method  where  I  think  it  won't  work?  " 

This  is  the  point  at  which  I  frequently  go 
up  in  the  air.  I'm  afraid  I  haven't  the  pa- 
tience to  be  a  good  teacher. 

It  is  all  so  obvious  to  me.  Success  in  life 
is  based  on  percentages.  If  you  have  a 
method  that  is  successful  seventy-five  per 
cent,  of  the  time,  you  don't  need  to  worry  a 

45 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

great  deal  about  the  tweny-five  per  cent,  of 
non-successes.  At  any  rate,  it  is  certainly 
better  to  have  a  seventy-five  per  cent,  plan 
than  to  have  no  plan  at  all,  although  you 
should  try  constantly  to  increase  the  per- 
centage of  successes. 

Take  the  confidence  man  as  an  example. 
He  is  a  salesman,  although  he  sells  nothing 
for  something.  He  not  only  uses  practically 
the  same  method  with  every  victim,  but  prac- 
tically every  confidence  ma'h  uses  practically 
the  same  method  as  every  other  confidence 
man.  In  other  words,  "  the  sick  engineer  " 
game,  "  the  green  goods  "  game,  "  the  wire 
tapping"  game,  "the  gold  brick"  game, 
"  the  dealer's  revenge  "  game,  "  the  lost  dia- 
mond "  game,  "  the  two  royal  flushes  "  game, 
"  the  double  cross  "  game  and  all  the  other 
games  are  accompanied  by  a  "  standard  "  line 
of  talk,  wherever  they  are  worked  and  by 
whomever  they  are  worked.  The  confidence 
man  in  El  Paso  uses  the  same  methods  as  the 
confidence  man  in  Bangor,  Maine.  Their 

46 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

methods  of  procedure  are  based  on  the  con- 
fidence man's  traditional  estimate  of  the 
greed  and  gullibility  of  the  average  man. 
They  fail  frequently,  but  they  succeed  often 
enough  to  leave  the  percentage  in  the  con- 
fidence man's  favor. 

I  do  not  regard  salesmanship  as  a  form  of 
confidence  game.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe 
that  the  first  element  of  good  salesmanship 
is  absolute  honesty,  but  I  cannot  refrain 
from  contrasting  with  a  confidence  man  the 
honest  salesman  of  an  honest  article,  at  an 
honest  price,  who  hangs  back  and  tries  to 
size  up  his  customer,  and  not  infrequently 
decides  that  the  customer  has  no  intention  of 
buying  and  that  consequently  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  make  any  serious  effort  to  sell  him. 
I  can't  refrain  from  comparing  such  a  sales- 
man with  the  confidence  man  who  says:  "  I 
don't  care  who  he  is,  or  what  he  is ;  if  he's  got 
the  money,  I'll  try  to  hook  him  with  the  same 
old  line  of  talk." 

A  confidence  man  once  said  to  me:  "  I've 

47 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

only  got  one  method.  You  can't  have  a  lot 
of  different  methods  and  have  'em  all  down 
pat  enough  to  get  over  with  your  e  cus- 
tomer* You'd  get  mixed  up  and  lose  your 
punch,  if  you  had  three  or  four  different 
lines  of  talk. 

"Don't  I  talk  differently  to  different 
types  of  people?  Well,  of  course,  I  don't 
swear  when  I  speak  to  a  church  deacon,  or 
talk  fast  to  a  slow  man,  or  talk  slowly  to  a 
quick  man,  or  sing  '  God  Save  the  King '  to 
a  Dublin  man,  but  outside  of  a  few  little 
things  like  that,  my  line  of  talk  is  pretty 
much  the  same  for  everybody." 

The  things  which  the  confidence  man 
called  "  a  few  little  things  like  that  "  are  the 
trivial  details  of  salesmanship  which  prevent 
so  many  alleged  salesmen  from  becoming 
more  than  mere  order  takers.  They  floun- 
der around  trying  to  size  people  up  or  "  read 
character,"  and  overlook  the  vital  fact  that 
pickpockets  and  preachers,  artists  and  arti- 

48 


t  THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

sans  are  the  same  in  ninety  per  cent,  of  their 
thoughts  and  impulses,  and  that  the  ten  per 
cent,  of  difference  is  usually  not  of  great 
concern  to  a  salesman. 

For  a  salesman  to  say  that  he  has  to  size 
up  his  prospective  customer  before  he  knows 
what  to  say  is  no  more  reasonable  than  it 
would  be  for  the  actors  in  a  play  to  have 
several  fundamentally  different  versions  of 
the  play  and  decide  what  version  of  it  to 
present,  after  they  had  looked  through  the 
peephole  at  the  audience.  The  comedian 
may  have  a  few  ad  lib.  gags,  which  he  changes 
according  to  the  character  of  his  audience,  or 
the  locality  in  which  he  is  playing,  but  his 
changes  have  about  as  much  relative  impor- 
tance to  the  success  or  non-success  of  the  play 
as  a  salesman's  variation  of  his  sales  talk, 
according  to  his  estimate  of  his  customer, 
has  to  his  success  as  a  salesman. 

The  salesman  who  imagines  that  he  varies 
his  sales  talks  and  sales  methods  according 

4  49 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

to  his  estimate  of  the  customer  with  whom 
he  is  dealing,  usually  doesn't  really  do  it.  He 
only  thinks  he  does  it.  I  have  recently  proved 
this  in  the  case  of  a  salesman  who  resolutely 
refuses  to  adopt  a  uniform  method,  because 
he  says  he  has  several  methods  and  must  have 
an  opportunity  to  size  up  his  customer  be- 
fore he  can  decide  which  method  to  use.  As 
a  matter  of  curiosity,  I  had  people  of  widely 
different  types  "shop  "  this  salesman  and 
their  reports  of  his  approach  and  subsequent 
sales  talk  are  almost  identical.  Neither  his 
approach  nor  his  sales  talk  is  good,  for  the 
simple  reason  that,  while  both  are  always 
practically  the  same,  he  hasn't  studied  and 
perfected  them,  as  he  would  do  if  he  could 
be  brought  to  realize  that  he  really  uses  prac- 
tically the  same  method  with  every  customer, 
up  to  the  point  of  attempting  to  close  the 
sale.  At  the  closing  point,  I  admit  that  the 
salesman's  methods  must  frequently  vary. 
Different  people  have  different  reasons  for 
their  reluctance  to  give  their  orders.  At  that 

50 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

stage  of  a  sale,  the  salesman  must  adapt  his 
remarks  to  the  circumstances  of  the  particu- 
lar case  in  hand,  so  far  as  those  circumstances 
are  revealed  to  him.  This  is  almost  too  obvi- 
ous to  require  comment. 

One  of  the  most  frequent  terms  of  con- 
demnation applied  to  an  unsuccessful  sales- 
man is  that  he  is  a  "  poor  closer."  I  have  fre- 
quently heard  it  said  that  "  So  and  So  is  a 
good  salesman  up  to  the  point  of  closing, 
but  he  doesn't  know  how  to  close  a  sale."  I 
have  never  known  a  salesman  who  was  good 
up  to  the  point  of  closing  but  wasn't  a  good 
closer.  Furthermore,  I  have  never  known  a 
poor  closer  who  wasn't  also  a  poor  beginner. 
I'm  not  a  great  believer  in  adages,  but  I  do 
believe  that  the  adage,  "  Well  begun  is  half 
done,"  is  a  very  great  truth  when  applied  to 
salesmanship. 

If  I  were  starting  out  again  to  learn  to 
be  a  salesman  I  would  develop  a  good  ap- 
proach before  I  tried  to  learn  anything  else 
about  salesmanship,  and  I  would  estimate 

51 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

the  soundness  of  my  method  of  approaching 
my  customers  by  my  success  in  engaging 
their  undivided  interest  in  the  article  I  was 
trying  to  sell.  Approach  is  something  more 
than  a  salutation.  It  should  go  farther  than 
that.  A  good  approach  involves  the  neces- 
sity of  stimulating  your  customer's  friendly 
interest  in  the  article  you  hope  to  sell  him. 
That  sounds  rather  academic,  but  you  can 
probably  give  it  a  very  practical  application 
to  your  own  problems,  if  you  try  hard 
enough. 

A  moment  ago  I  thought  I  had  ended  this 
chapter,  but  I  find  that  I  have  left  suspended 
in  the  air,  as  it  were,  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria 
the  several  gentlemen  who  sought  positions 
as  traveling  salesmen  and  claimed  to  have  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  psychology.  Not  for 
worlds  would  I  have  you  think  that  I  am 
prejudiced  against  a  psychologist.  It  is  only 
when  he  is  also  a  character  reader  that  I  am 
prejudiced  against  him.  I  don't  believe  in 
character-reading  salesmen.  My  experience 

52 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

has  been  that  character-reading  is  more  fre- 
quently an  alibi  for  not  getting  an  order  than 
an  aid  to  getting  one.  I  don't  know  of  any- 
thing that  irritates  me  more  than  a  salesman's 
report  to  this  effect:  "  The  minute  I  saw 
him,  I  sized  him  up  and  knew  there  was  no 
chance  to  do  anything  with  him." 


53 


APPROACH 

I  AM  going  to  quote  in  its  entirety  a  letter 
from  a  New  York  retail  salesman.  First  of 
all,  this  letter  contributes  the  best  tip  on 
salesmanship  that  anyone  can  give  you;  sec- 
ond, it  asks  a  question  which  every  thought- 
ful and  ambitious  salesman  is  continually 
submitting  to  himself:  "  How  can  I  improve 
my  approach? " 

I've  been  a  salesman  in  a  retail  store  for  the  last 
five  months.  After  about  two  months  of  my  experience 
in  this  store  I  learned  (using  your  expression)  how  to 
"size  up  a  customer."  Since  then  I  practiced  this 
"sizing  up  of  customers"  and  found  that  I  sold  to 
thirty  per  cent,  of  the  customers  that  I  handled.  At 
first  I  thought  this  pretty  good,  but  finally  began  to 
think  that  the  increase  in  percentage  of  sales  did  not 
keep  step  with  the  experience  I  was  gaining  all  the 
time.  I  gave  the  matter  so  much  thought  that  in  the 
end  I  decided  my  system  of  reading  a  customer's  char- 
acter was  not  as  good  as  it  possibly  could  be.  Trying 
to  find  different  systems  did  not  help,  and  in  the  end  it 
struck  me  that  there  were  only  two  systems,  either 

54 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

to  "size  him  up"  or  not  to  (size  him  up).  This  was 
about  three  days  previous  to  the  reading  of  one  of 
your  articles.  Having  tried  the  first  way  for  the  last 
few  months,  I  decided  to  try  the  other,  and,  coupled 
with  the  determination  to  sell  to  every  customer,  I've 
found  it  working  splendidly.  Within  the  last  three  days 
I've  sold  to  eight  out  of  the  nine  customers  that  I 
waited  on.  One  of  these  eight  admitted  afterwards 
that  he  had  only  come  into  the  store  with  the  intention 
of  pricing  the  article,  and  to  two  of  the  remaining 
seven,  not  having  what  they  asked  for,  I  sold  entirely 
different  articles. 

On  reading  your  article  I  thought  it  quite  a  coinci- 
dence* to  read  about  the  things  uppermost  in  my  mind 
at  the  time,  and  I  can't  help  expressing  my  admiration 
after  reading  it. 

There's  one  thing,  though,  which  I  don't,  but  would 
like  to  understand  very  much,  and  that  is  about  de- 
veloping a  good  approach.  I  would  be  very  much 
obliged'  to  you  if  you  could  in  some  way,  so  it  can 
reach  me  (and  I  think  it  would  interest  many  other 
readers  of  your  articles)  explain  in  detail,  exactly 
what  you  mean. 

This  young  man  has  mastered  one  of  the 
most  important  truths  of  salesmanship. 
Speaking  in  an  extremely  broad  sense,  there 

55 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

are  two  general  systems  of  retail  salesman- 
ship. One  is  to  "  size  up  "  each  prospective 
customer  and  gauge  your  efforts  accord- 
ingly; the  other  is  to  "  size  up  "  no  one,  but 
to  do  your  utmost  to  sell  everyone.  The  lat- 
ter system  gets  the  money  in  the  long  run. 
It  took  this  young  man  only  five  months  to 
discover  this  fact.  I  know  of  salesmen  who 
have  not  learned  as  much  in  thirty  years  of 
sales  experience. 

He  asks  me  to  tell  him  how  to  develop  a 
good  approach.  As  stated  in  the  previous 
chapter,  approach  is  partly  salutation  and 
partly  an  introduction  of  your  goods  in  a 
way  that  will  stimulate  the  interest  of  your 
prospect.  As  our  New  York  friend  has  not 
told  us  what  kind  of  goods  he  sells,  it  is  neces- 
sary, in  essaying  an  answer  to  his  question, 
to  speak  chiefly  of  approach  as  a  form  of  sal- 
utation, which,  perhaps,  is  its  most  important 
aspect  in  those  cases  where  the  potential  cus- 
tomer visits  a  store  or  sample  room  to  look  at 
goods. 

66 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

The  best  approach  a  retail  salesman  can 
use,  when  an  unknown  visitor  enters  his  store, 
consists  of  a  pleasant  smile  and  a  courteous  ) 
good  morning,  or  good  afternoon.  But  many 
salesmen  smirk  when  they  think  they  are 
smiling,  and  others  mistake  servility  for  cour- 
tesy. There  must  be  sincerity  in  your  man- 
ner. If  you  are  a  retail  salesman — or  sales- 
woman— you  are  not  properly  tuned  up  to 
your  job  until  you  regard  every  visitor  to 
your  store  as  a  welcome  guest  and  habitually 
endeavor  to  make  all  shoppers  realize  that 
fact  by  your  reception  of  them.  You  can't 
merely  pretend  to  feel  that  way  about  the 
people  who  come  to  the  store ;  you  must  actu- 
ally feel  it.  In  my  opinion,  one  of  the  first 
things  a  retail  salesman  should  do  is  to  de- 
velop the  right  mental  attitude  toward  the 
customers  of  his  store.  He  should  learn  to 
think  of  them  as  friends,  so  that  his  greeting 
of  each  customer  will  instinctively  be  a  gen- 
uinely friendly  one.  When  you  join  a  fra- 
ternal organization,  you  adopt  toward  its 

57 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

members  a  relationship  based  on  the  assump- 
tion of  mutual  tastes  and  interests.  You  feel 
at  least  a  little  closer  to  your  lodge  brethren 
than  to  the  average  member  of  the  general 
public,  and  accordingly  you  put  a  little  more 
friendliness  into  your  salutation  of  a  lodge 
brother.  Every  prospective  customer  who 
enters  your  store  should  mean  more  to  you  in 
a  material  sense  than  any  of  your  fellow 
lodge  members.  Your  lodge  may  help  bury 
you,  if  necessary,  but  the  customers  of  your 
store  are  helping  to  keep  you  alive  and  are 
offering  you  daily  opportunities  to  improve 
vour  condition  in  life.  The  people  who  visit 
lyour  store,  even  when  they  have  no  immedi- 
ate intention  of  buying,  are  good  friends  of 
yours,  although  they  may  never  have  heard 
of  you.  Therefore,  you  should  think  of  them 
as  friends  and  you  should  greet  them  as 
friends. 

Now  how  do  you  greet  your  friends?  I 
know  a  man  who  has  scarcely  any  close 
friends,  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  doesn't 

58 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

know  how  to  say  "  How  do  you  do."  The 
way  he  says  it  makes  that  friendly  salutation 
sound  almost  like  an  insult.  He  appears  to 
grudge  the  words  and  the  effort  of  uttering 
them.  He  is  entirely  unconscious  of  this 
fault,  and  I  am  sure  he  could  easily  correct 
it.  Have  you  a  defect  in  the  way  you  say 
"Good  morning  "  to  a  prospective  customer? 
Do  you  say  it  perfunctorily  as  a  thing  that 
has  to  be  said,  but  doesn't  mean  anything? 
If  so,  your  approach  is  bad,  and  it's  up  to  you 
to  put  some  real  stuff  into  the  words.  I  know 
a  man  who  draws  $25,000  a  year,  principally 
because  he  learned  the  right  way  to  say 
"  Good  morning  "  and  "  Good  afternoon  "; 
and  he  would  say  it  to  J.  P.  Morgan  in  just 
the  same  way  as  he  said  it  to  Tony  the  boot- 
black. He  wasn't  afraid  to  say  "  Good  morn- 
ing "  to  Mr.  Morgan,  and  he  wasn't  ashamed 
to  say  "  Good  morning  "  to  Tony. 

Do  you  know  how  to  smile?  Is  your  smile 
merely  a  muscular  contortion,  or  do  you 
make  it  mean  something.  Your  eyes  should 

59 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

smile.  Do  they?  I  wonder  if  you  have  a  dog 
friend — a  dog  which  really  likes  you?  If  you 
have,  look  at  his  eyes  the  next  time  he  greets 
you  and  you  will  know  what  I  mean.  It 
would  seem  that  anyone  could  learn  to  smile 
as  well  as  a  dog,  but  lots  of  people  don't 
do  it.  A  dog,  however,  has  an  advantage 
over  human  beings  in  that  his  heart  is  al- 
ways right  toward  his  friends.  He  is  almost 
never  too  busy,  too  tired,  too  hungry  or  too 
ill  to  smile  with  his  eyes  at  his  friends.  If  we 
salesmen  would  cultivate  that  attitude  with 
reference  to  all  of  our  customers,  I  am  sure 
it  would  improve  our  approach. 

I  may  not  know  you  and  you  may  not 
know  me,  but  if  I  say  "  Good  morning  "  to 
you  as  if  I  really  mean  it,  and  smile  at  you 
as  if  I  am  truly  glad  to  see  you  and  intend 
to  place  myself  entirely  at  your  disposal, 
I  am  putting  the  emphasis  on  the  you,  where 
it  always  belongs  in  salesmanship.  It  doesn't 
matter  whether  you  are  a  millionaire  or  a 
chimney  sweep,  you  will  appreciate  the  fact 

60 


L  THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

that  I  am  Interested  in  you  and  anxious  to 
do  everything  that  I  can  for  you.  If  I  am 
a  salesman  and  you  come  to  my  store,  it 
would,  of  course,  be  unpardonable  for  me 
immediately  to  ask  you  what  you  want,  just 
as  it  would  be  almost  unforgivable  in  me  to 
ask  you  that  question  if  you  were  my  friend 
and  called  at  my  home  to  pay  me  a  social 
visit.  Let  me  emphasize  that  the  people  who 
come  to  your  store  are  your  guests,  and  that 
they  should  be  treated  as  guests.  Don't  ask  j 
a  customer  what  he  wants  or  what  you  can 
do  for  him.  Show  by  your  greeting  that  you 
are  at  his  service,  give  him  a  chance  to  tell 
you  what  he  wants  and  then  demonstrate  by 
your  cheerful  alacrity  that  it  is  a  real  pleas- 
ure to  you  to  get  the  article  for  him. 

If  you  know  a  customer's  name,  you 
naturally  have  an  advantage  when  you  ap- 
proach him.  Do  you  try  to  remember 
names?  Probably  not;  likely  enough  you 
are  one  of  those  who  almost  boast  that  they 
"can  remember  faces,  but  can't  remember 

61 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

names."  If  you  don't  remember  names  it 
doesn't  do  you  much  good  to  remember  faces. 
You  can  learn  to  remember  names — a  good 
many  names  at  least.  I  am  acquainted  with 
a  former  hotel  clerk  who  became  the  pro- 
prietor of  a  large  hotel  because  he  cultivated 
the  faculty  of  remembering  names. 

But  suppose  you  don't  know  a  customer's 
name;  is  there  anything  you  should  say  or 
do  except  to  smile  and  say  good  morning  or 
good  afternoon?  That  depends  on  you,  your 
customer,  and  the  kind  of  store  in  which  you 
work.  I  know  a  small  shop  keeper  who,  on 
a  rainy  day,  will  take  a  customer's  umbrella, 
shake  it  carefully  and  return  it  in  such  a  way 
that  he  seems  to  have  performed  a  very  use- 
ful service.  That,  of  course,  would  not  work 
in  a  large  store,  but  always  there  are  ways  of 
demonstrating  your  desire  and  readiness  to 
be  of  service.  If  you  are  behind  a  counter, 
you  can  move  something  on  the  show  case 
with  an  air  which  implies  that  everything  has 
been  dismissed  from  your  thoughts  except 

62 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

your  desire  to  be  of  service  to  the  customer 
who  stands  before  you.  While  you  are  per- 
forming this  operation  be  sure  to  look  at 
your  customer,  else  he  may  think  you  are 
"  tidying  up  "  and  neglecting  him.  Don't 
prolong  the  operation.  It  should  be  instan- 
taneous and  preferably  while  you  are 
smiling  and  saying  "  Good  morning "  or 
"  Good  afternoon." 

If  you  -are  in  a  department  where  chairs 
are  provided  for  customers,  you  should  offer 
a  chair  to  your  prospective  customer,  unless 
he  manifests  great  haste.  Most  salesmen 
seem  to  take  it  for  granted  that  people  know 
what  chairs  are  for  and  that  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  offer  a  particular  chair  when  plenty 
are  in  sight.  Here  again  we  must  remember 
that  a  customer  is  a  guest  and  that  the  good 
host  offers  a  particular  seat  to  his  guest  and 
may  even  recommend  its  comfort. 

It  is  needless  for  me  to  go  on  multiplying 
examples  of  how  to  develop  effective  touches 
of  hospitable  courtesy  in  your  approach  of 

63 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

visitors  to  your  store.  You  can  do  the  thing 
easily  enough,  if  you  feel  real  friendliness 
for  the  customers  of  your  store. 

I  am  moved  to  touch  on  one  very  common 
fault  of  retail  salesmen  and  saleswomen.  The 
average  salesman,  if  waiting  on  one  customer, 
when  a  second  approaches,  seems  disposed 
either  to  ignore  the  second  customer  entirely 
or  else  to  greet  him  in  a  way  which  makes  the 
first  customer  feel  that  he  is  being  hurried. 
For  such  situations  the  salesman  should  have 
a  smiling  but  silent  salutation,  to  be  followed 
later — when  the  first  customer  is  disposed  of 
— by  the  usual  spoken  salutation.  Girls  are 
ordinarily  better  at  this  than  men.  They 
can  put  more  significance  into  a  look  or  a 
nod  than  a  man  can — unless  he  happens  to 
be  an  actor.  I  think  this  is  probably  due 
to  the  fact  that  girls  and  actors  use  their 
mirrors  a  good  deal.  Perhaps  it  wouldn't 
harm  salesmen  if  they  used  their  mirrors 
to  see  how  they  look  when  they  nod  and 
smile. 

64 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

When  the  customer  comes  to  the  salesman 
it  is  not  always  necessary  that  the  approach 
be  more  than  an  effective  salutation,  but  usu- 
ally it  is  desirable  to  make  some  comment 
about  the  goods  the  very  instant  the  shopper 
has  told  you  what  kind  of  article  he  desires 
to  inspect.  This  comment  should  make  him 
feel  that  his  visit  has  been  well  timed,  or 
that  his  inquiry  denotes  discrimination,  or 
that  you  have  something  out  of  the  ordinary 
to  show  him.  For  example,  such  remarks 
as  these,  when  truthful  and  appropriate,  help 
to  round  out  your  approach:  "  You're  just 
in  time;  there's  still  a  good  selection,  but 
they're  going  fast,"  or  "  We've  just  received 
a  brand  new  lot,"  or  "  Those  are  wonderful 
goods,  aren't  they? "  or  "  I  think  I  have  a 
pleasant  surprise  in  store  for  you;  let  us  see 
if  I  haven't." 

When  the  salesman  goes  to  his  prospective 

customer,  as  distinguished  from  his  customer 

coming  to  him,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that 

his  approach,  in. addition  to  embodying  the 

5  65 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

essentials  of  a  good  salutation,  should  also 
intrigue  the  interest  of  the  customer  in  the 
salesman's  firm,  or  goods — or  both. 


SELLING  GREEN  COFFEE 
An  experienced  coffee  salesman  propounds  this  per- 
plexing problem:  "I  am  selling  green  coffee  to  the 
large  trade.  I  have  the  same  thing  to  offer  as  has  the 
other  fellow,  and  his  prices  and  mine  are  based  on  the 
same  market,  same  grade  of  goods,  same  system  of 
doing  business — nothing  but  a  great  sameness  all  the 
way  through.  Buyers  know  that.  Assume  that  you 
are  one  of  these  buyers  and  I  am  trying  to  sell  you  for 
the  first  time.  You  are  a  man  who  will  draw  into  the 
cup  and  select  your  own  goods.  You  will  not  be  talked 
into  anything  you  are  not  sure  about.  You  are  in  the 
market,  say,  for  two  hundred  bags  of  green  Santos  of  a 
certain  grade.  You  will  have  three  or  four  coffee 
houses  submit  their  samples  and  prices.  You  will  test 
the  samples  and  compare  the  prices,  and  satisfy  your- 
self as  to  the  best  values.  Other  things  being  equal, 
you  will  be  inclined  to  favor  a  house  or  a  salesman 
with  whom  you  are  acquainted.  My  goods  and  prices 
prove  to  be  all  right,  but  perhaps  no  better  than  those 
of  one  or  more  of  the  other  fellows.  You  have  never 
done  business  with  my  house,  although  you  know  them 

66 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

to  have  a  first-class  reputation.  I  am  an  entire 
stranger  to  you.  How  should  I  approach  you,  if  I 
expect  to  get  your  business  the  first  time  I  make  a 
bid  for  it?" 

Assume  that  your  coffee,  prices  and  terms 
are  no  better  than  the  other  fellow's,  is  there 
not  some  element  of  service,  or  some  charac- 
teristic practice  of  your  house,  with  which 
you  could  excite  my  curiosity? 

How  would  it  do  for  you  to  say  to  me 
something  like  this:  "Recently  I  have  been 
wondering  why  my  house  has  never  been  able 
to  sell  you,  and  I  thought  I'd  come  in  to-day 
and  ask  you  about  it.  Is  it  their  fault?  Is 
there  some  reason  why  you  do  not  care  to 
do  business  with  them?  " 

Very  possibly  this  would  put  me  on  the 
defensive  to  the  extent  that  I  would  say  that 
I  hold  your  house  in  the  highest  esteem,  but 
patronize  other  concerns  because  I  have  been 
dealing  with  them  for  years  and  do  not  feel 
that  I  have  any  justification  for  changing. 

67 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

Such  a  statement  by  me  would  give  you  an 
opportunity  to  remark:  "  I'm  certainly  glad 
to  know  that  nothing  has  ever  happened  to 
prejudice  you  against  my  people.  I  think 
they're  pretty  nearly  the  whitest  people  in 
the  business,  and  it  worried  me  to  think  that 
a  concern  like  yours  might  have  it  in 'for 
them.  Now  it  may  be  that  we  can't  give  you 
any  better  service  than  these  other  people, 
but  I've  got  an  idea  we  can."  At  this  point 
you  could  briefly  describe  whatever  points  of 
superiority  your  house  possesses  and  then 
you  might  go  on  to  say:  "  I  wish  you  would 
give  me  a  chance  to  demonstrate  just  how 
we  would  handle  an  order.  If  you  find  that 
you  don't  like  our  methods  enough  better 
than  the  other  fellow's  to  justify  you  in  giv- 
ing us  a  share  of  your  business,  no  harm  will 
have  been  done.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  you 
may  get  better  service  from  the  other  fellows 
on  future  orders  if  you  place  a  trial  order 
with  us  now.  I'll  say  to  you  frankly  that 
we'd  like  to  have  your  name  on  our  books 

68 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

once  anyway.  If  we  can't  keep  you  as  a 
regular  customer — that  will  be  our  fault,  not 
yours." 

I  think  the  foregoing  might  possibly  be 
a  good  approach  in  view  of  the  conditions 
outlined.  At  least,  it  has  the  virtue  of  put- 
ting the  emphasis  where  it  belongs,  namely, 
on  the  buyer.  So  long  as  you  keep  the 
buyer  in  the  picture,  you  are  pretty  certain  to 
keep  his  interest  alive.  Too  many  salesmen 
talk  tiresomely  about  their  goods  and  treat 
the  buyer  solely  as  a  listener.  He  should  in- 
variably be  made  a  character  in  the  story  the 
salesman  has  to  tell.  The  buyer  likes  to  hear 
you  talk  about  himself;  therefore,  always  put 
him  in  the  foreground  of  every  word  picture 
that  you  draw. 

HOW  NOT  TO  DO  IT 

I  am  indebted  to  a  gentleman  from  Elk- 
hart,  Indiana,  for  an  excellent  example  of 
the  approach  a  traveling  salesman  should  not 
use.  I  quote  his  letter  entire : 


THE  TRAINING  FO  A  SALESMAN 

I  have  never  had  any  experience  in  salesmanship,  but 
as  my  regular  occupation  is  likely  to  come  to  an  end 
owing  to  war  conditions  and  as  I  am  thinking  of  taking 
up  the  position  of  a  traveling  salesman,  I  can  appreciate 
the  importance  of  a  good  approach,  and  I  think  it  would 
be  very  helpful  if  you  would  give  me  a  few  specimen 
dialogues,  varied  to  suit  different  kinds  of  merchandise 
and  prospective  buyers.  My  idea  of  it  is  something 
like  this: 

Traveling  salesman  (to  clerk) — "Good  morning,  I 
should  like  to  see  the  proprietor." 

Clerk— "That's  him  over  by  the  desk." 

T.  S.  (to  hardware  merchant,  a  stocky  looking  fel- 
low in  shirt  sleeves) — "Good  morning,  Mr. .  I 

am  representing .  We  carry  all  lines  of  goods  of 

such  and  such  nature.    If  you  are  not  too  busy  I  should 
like  to  show  you  a  few  of  the  special  things  we  have." 

H.  M. — "Well,  let's  see  what  you  have  got." 

T.  S. — "We  have  been  selling  a  good  many  of  these 
lately." 

H.  M. — "Got  a  gross  of  them  on  the  shelf — no  call 
for  them  at  all." 

T.  S. — "Well,  it  is  sometimes  hard  to  introduce  them 
at  first.  Now,  here  is  another  tool.  It  does " 

H.  M'. — "We  have  very  little  call  for  anything  except 
the  regular  staple  lines." 

70 


TRAVELING  SALESMAN    (TO  CLERK) — "GOOD  MORNING,    I  SHOULD  LIKE  TO 

SEE  THE  PROPRIETOR" 
CLERK — "THAT'S  HIM  OVER  BY  THE  DESK" 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

T.  S. — "We  carry  everything.  We  know  your 

rating,  Mr.  ,  and  we  would  like  to  do  a  little 

business  with  you.  You  must  be  always  wanting 

.  If  you  could  give  us  a  trial  order,  I  am  sure 

it  won't  be  our  fault  if  we  can't  satisfy  you,  etc.,  etc." 

I  have  no  doubt  that  with  your  experience  you  could 
give  a  better  line  of  talk  than  the  above,  and  it  would 
be  interesting  to  have  some  samples  of  the  kind  of 
rejoinders  best  calculated  to  overcome  the  "nothing 
doing"  attitude  which  is,  I  suppose,  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty to  be  anticipated. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  a  mistake  to  treat 
a  clerk  as  if  he  were  an  office  boy.  When 
you  enter  a  small  store,  such  as  our  Elkhart 
reader  evidently  had  in  mind,  and  you  are 
approached  by  a  clerk,  engage  him  in  con- 
versation and  try  to  make  a  friend  of  him. 
On  your  way  back  to  the  boss's  desk,  en- 
deavor to  leave  a  trail  of  friends  behind  you 
and  incidentally  gather  some  useful  informa- 
tion as  you  go.  In  a  big  store,  if  there  is  no 
house  rule  or  prejudice  against  the  practice, 
pay  your  respects  to  the  sales  people  in  the 
department  where  your  class  of  goods  is  sold 

71 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

before  you  go  to  the  buyer's  office.  The  in- 
formation you  gain  from  the  sales  people 
may  enable  you  to  avoid  the  catastrophe  of 
offering  as  your  attention  getter  a  type  of 
merchandise  on  which  the  buyer  is  already 
overstocked.  Don't  start  in  by  telling  him 
about  your  house.  Smile,  shake  hands,  and 
say  something  pleasant;  then  hand  him  the 
article  you  have  selected  to  use  in  making 
your  approach.  Be  sure  to  get  him  to  take 
and  hold  the  thing  in  his  hands.  Then  say 
to  him  something  like  this:  "  What  do  you 
think  of  that?  Isn't  that  a  peach?  You 
know  how  to  sell  a  good  thing;  we  know 
how  to  make  it.  Is  there  any  reason  why 
your  sales  force  couldn't  make  a  killing  with 
that  piece  of  goods?  " 

Keep  after  the  buyer  with  this  last  ques- 
tion until  a  sense  of  pride  makes  him  admit — 
or  assert — that  his  sales  people  could  sell  the 
article  if  he  wanted  them  to  do  so.  When  he 
has  admitted  that  much,  you  have  an 
opening. 

72 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

I  believe  that  the  philosophy  of  this  char- 
acter of  approach  will  be  clear  to  any  sales- 
man, and  I  am  sure  the  Elkhart  gentleman 
will  have  no  difficulty  in  adapting  it  to  what- 
ever line  of  goods  he  undertakes  to  sell. 
Here's  hoping  that  he  may  have  much 
success. 

I  have  the  following  letter  from  Iowa : 

I  am  a  retail  automobile  salesman  employed  by  a 
leading  concern  in  a  city  of  38,000  inhabitants,  selling 
two  lines  of  cars,  one  listing  at  $885.00,  the  other  at 
$1950.00  for  open  models,  and  prices  running  as  high 
as  $3500.00  for  enclosed  models. 

Our  city  is  situated  in  a  rich  farming  district,  so 
we  sell  both  to  city  folks  and  to  farmers.  In  view  of 
our  wide  range  of  price  and  various  classes  of  cus- 
tomers, I  would  like  to  submit  this  problem: 

I  approach  all  classes  of  men,  the  wealthy  success- 
ful manufacturer  or  merchant,  the  successful  pro- 
fessional man,  the  well-paid  mechanic,  the  wealthy 
landowner  and  farmer,  and  the  renter  on  the  farm 
who  needs  a  moderate  priced  car  to  bring  him  closer 
to  town.  One  is  buying  purely  a  luxury,  another  a  semi- 
luxury,  and  yet  another,  a  necessity.  One  calls  at  our 
salesroom  and  makes  known  his  wants;  in  another 
.  73 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

case  you  learn  of  his  wants  through  a  friend,  and 
again,  you  call  upon  your  man  without  any  idea  as  to 
his  needs,  his  thoughts  or  his  ability  to  buy. 

Tell  me,  can  a  salesman  have  anywhere  near  a  set 
approach  for  all  these  conditions?  Is  it  not  almost 
necessary  that  he  size  up  his  customer  in  a  few  seconds 
upon  the  first  interview,  to  secure  the  proper  hearing? 

I  would  be  pleased  to  hear  from  you  personally,  also 
to  see  further  articles  on  salesmanship,  and  especially 
this  particular  phase  of  it. 

I  am  sure  this  Iowa  automobile  salesman 
has  heard  the  story  of  the  negro  who  was 
asked  by  another  negro  to  lend  the  latter  five 
dollars,  and  replied:  "  Brother,  I  ain't  had 
five  dollahs  in  five  years,  but  I  certainly  ap- 
preciates the  compliment." 

I  think  an  Iowa  tenant  farmer  would  ap- 
preciate the  compliment  of  being  canvassed 
on  a  $3500  automobile,  and  it  wouldn't  be 
bad  salesmanship,  either,  provided  the  sales- 
man left  the  way  open  to  come  down  to  a 
cheaper  car  gracefully.  The  other  day  I 
entered  a  Fifth  Avenue  store  to  purchase  a 
cane.  The  salesman  showed  me  a  stick  of 

74 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

some  rare  wood  that  was  priced  at  $25. 
When  I  protested  at  the  price,  he  remarked: 
"  You  want  a  stick  for  real  service,  don't 
you?  Here  is  one  at  $5  that  will  stand  rough 
usage  better  than  the  $25  stick." 

I  bought  the  $5  cane.  If  the  salesman  had 
sized  me  up  from  my  somewhat  unkempt  ap- 
pearance and  showed  me  the  $5  cane  at  the 
outset,  I  should  probably  have  bought  a  $3 
stick. 

To  my  mind  there  is  a  hint  in  our  Iowa 
friend's  letter  that  he  is  a  trifle  too  quick  on 
the  trigger.  He  seems  to  feel  that  he  must 
be  able  to  say  to  a  prospective  customer:  "  I 
know  just  what  you  want." 

I  think  it  would  be  better  to  say:  "  I  don't 
suppose  there  is  a  man,  woman  or  child  in 
the  United  States  who  hasn't  thought  about 
owning  a  car.  I  don't  believe  there  is  anyone 
who  hasn't  at  least  thought  how  big  and  how 
fast  a  car  he  would  like  to  have,  what  color 
he  would  want  it  to  be,  and  what  he  would  do 
with  it.  If  you  were  going  to  buy  a  car  this 

75 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

year,  what  would  you'want  it  to  be  like  and 
what  would  you  want  it  to  do? " 

I  don't  claim  that  the  foregoing  is  a  good 
approach.  I  merely  suggest  that  in  some 
circumstances  it  may  be  better  than  an  at- 
tempt to  tell  a  stranger  what  he  wants. 

Needless  to  say,  a  prospective  customer's 
occupation,  the  location  of  his  residence  and 
the  extent  of  his  financial  means,  if  known, 
are  leads  that  should  be  utilized  by  an  auto- 
mobile salesman  in  planning  his  approach, 
but  to  make  intelligent  use  of  such  informa- 
tion is  quite  different  from  the  scatter- 
brained "  sizing  up  "  process  which  many 
salesmen  fatuously  believe  they  can  succes- 
fully  apply  to  any  one  at  first  sight. 

If  the  writer  of  the  following  letter  had 
a  body  as  strong  as  his.  spirit  apparently  is, 
there  is  no  telling  what  heights  of  success 
he  could  achieve: 

I  would  like  to  know  if  you  could  give  me  any  valu- 
able suggestions  on  salesmanship. 

On  account  of  poor  health  I  can  work  but  little  now. 
76 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

While  I  can,  I  take  orders  for  books  and  have  sold 
toilet  articles,  specialties,  soaps,  etc. 

I  have  been  sick  and  sickly  for  over  five  years  now — 
had  appendicitis,  two  operations,  pleurisy,  malaria, 
nervousness,  and  rheumatism — and  am  now  in  a  de- 
bilitated condition,  and  the  doctor  says  I  have 
neurasthenia. 

I  have!  had  two  years  of  high  school  besides  a  great 
deal  of  outside  reading.  I  finished  common  school  five 
years  ago  this  spring.  This  is  the  third  year  since 
then  that  I  have  had  to  miss  school ;  otherwise  I  should 
have  finished  last  year.  Am  now  16  years,  11  months 
old,  weigh  78  pounds  and  my  height  is  about  five  feet. 

I  began  taking  orders  for  war  books  and  other  books 
about  three  weeks  ago,  working  part  time — 55  orders 
for  thd  war  book  I  am  selling. 

My  dear  boy,  the  first  thing  for  you  to 
do  is  to  get  well.  Go  to  your  doctor  and 
tell  him  that  you  are  determined  to  conquer 
the  ills  of  your  body.  Evidently  you  require 
something  more  than  medicine.  Perhaps  the 
thing  you  need  is  an  outdoor  life,  free  from 
the  nervous  strain  that  book  canvassing  im- 
poses on  one  of  your  temperament.  Eight 

77 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

work  on  the  farm  of  some  big-hearted  farmer 
who  sets  a  good  table  may  be  the  solution  of 
your  problem.  Possibly  you  need  a  differ- 
ent climate.  Tell  your  doctor  you  want  him 
to  select  a  vocation  for  you  that  will  make 
you  well.  Get  well,  and  I  am  pretty  sure 
you  can  make  a  big  success  in  life. 


OVERCOMING  A  CUSTOMER'S 
INDIFFERENCE 

FROM  Minnesota  came  the  following 
letter: 

For  a  long  time  I  believed  myself  to  be  a  poor 
closer.  Where  I  got  that  impression  I  do  not  know, 
but  it  remained  with  me  a  long  time.  All  I  have  to  say 
now,  is  give  me  a  good  start  and  the  closing  will  take 
care  of  itself. 

I  do  have  some  little  trouble,  however,  in  making 
myself  at  ease  with  two  classes  of  prospect.  One  class 
is  those  who  won't  say  anything,  or  but  very  little,  in 
response  to  my  talking;  the  kind  of  prospect  who 
silently  admits,  or  seems  to  admit,  the  arguments  I 
make,  but  who  still  remains  apparently  unmoved.  The 
other  is  the  man  who  expressly  concedes  the  desirability 
of  the  product  I  am  selling  and  its  superiority  over 
other  similar  products,  but  will  not  attentively  listen  or 
respond'  to  selling  talk  that  he  thinks  might  influence 
him  to  own  such  a  product.  If  there  are  any  ways  to 
pry  open  clams  of  this  sort  I'd  like  very  much  to  know 
of  such  ways,  and  if  you  have  any  to  suggest  and  can 

79 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

find  time  to  write  me  of  them,  I  shall  certainly  feel 
deeply  indebted  to  you  for  the  time  and  attention  you 
have  given  me. 

Thanking  you  for  your  attention,  and  hoping  that 
I  may  have  the  pleasure  of  reading  more  of  your 
interesting1  and  instructive  writings,  I  am 

The  young  man  who  wrote  the  foregoing 
is  now  in  Uncle  Sam's  uniform.  I  hope  this 
book  will  get  through  to  him  wherever  he 
chances  to  be.  His  letter  propounds  a  prob- 
lem that  is  encountered  by  lawyers  and 
clergymen  as  well  as  by  salesmen.  I  was  once 
told  by  a  clergyman  of  evangelistic  gifts  that 
"it  is  hard  to  convert  a  complacent  man," 
and  I  know  that  a  juror,  who  gives  no  sign 
either  of  accord  with,  or  dissent  to,  any  of  the 
arguments  presented,  is  usually  a  source  of 
irritation  to  trial  lawyers. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  worth  while  to  con- 
sider how  evangelists  and  lawyers  deal  with 
the  abnormally  complacent  man,  particu- 
larly as  they  seem  to  have  more  systematic 
and  scientific  methods  of  opening  a  clam  than 
those  practiced  by  the  average  salesman. 

80 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

What  makes  a  man  act  like  a  clam?  There 
are  various  causes.  He  may  be  silent  solely 
because  he  is  too  stupid  to  be  otherwise,  or 
he  may  be  purposefully  silent  because  he  is 
conscious  of  his  mental  limitations  and  finds 
silence  his  safest  sanctuary,  or  he  may  be 
an  evasive  sort  of  person,  who  agrees  with 
you  on  inconsequential  points,  but  dodges 
the  issue  when  you  seek  decisive  action  on 
the  main  question.  Of  course,  there  is  also 
the  grouch,  but  he  doesn't  matter  much,  as 
grouches  cut  very  little  figure  at  any  time 
in  anything. 

To  be  a  clam  successfully,  one  must  main- 
tain an  impersonal  attitude  of  detached  dis- 
interest. The  moment  you  make  a  clam  the 
central  figure  in  a  picture  which  you  draw 
for  his  benefit,  and  cause  him  to  think  of 
himself  as  the  possible  beneficiary  or  victim 
of  the  circumstances  you  describe,  that  very 
instant  he  ceases  to  be  a  clam.  The  trans- 
formation may  not  manifest  itself  in  words, 
but  it  has  occurred,  and  you  will  be  able 

6  81 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

to  reap  the  results  of  its  occurrence  if  you 
proceed  properly. 

Recently  I  saw  an  editorial  in  which 
William  Sunday  was  characterized  as  a  man 
who  had  dramatized  vulgarity.  That  is 
scarcely  fair  to  Mr.  Sunday.  He  does  not 
dramatize  vulgarity.  He  dramatizes  the 
hopes  and  fears  of  his  audiences.  If  his 
dramatization  is  vulgar,  it  is  because  most 
of  the  members  of  his  audiences  are  vulgar. 
Many  of  the  people  to  whom  he  speaks 
are  clams — stupid  clams,  or  self -repressive 
clams,  or  smooth,  evasive  clams.  Billy  Sun- 
day shocks  and  scares  these  clams  until  they 
open  up  their  minds.  He  holds  each  mem- 
ber of  his  audience  over  the  searing  fires  of 
hell  and  seemingly  tries  to  .make  each  of 
them  feel  an  individual  consciousness  of  fear. 
When  he  has  done  that,  he  renders  it  easy 
for  them  to  "  hit  the  trail."  If  he  fails  to 
use  a  few  paid  "  boosters  "  to  start  the  pro- 
cessions, he  is  overlooking  an  obviously  effec- 
tive aid,  but  even  if  he  doesn't  use  boosters, 

82 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

he  nevertheless  makes  the  trail  to  the  mourn- 
er's bench  the  easiest  way  for  the  newly 
opened  clams  to  express  their  new-found  and 
acutely- felt  realization  of  their  sinful  short- 
comings. In  other  words,  Sunday  preaches 
personal  sermons  that  open  human  clams. 

Likewise,  the  skilful  trial  lawyer,  who  ob- 
serves a  juror  of  apathetic  or  unfriendly 
attitude,  will  usually  try  to  get  such  juror  to 
feel  a  personal  interest  in  the  case,  and  in 
particular  will  endeavor  to  make  the  juror 
contemplate  himself  as  standing  in  the  shoes 
of  the  lawyer's  client,  beset  by  all  the  in- 
trigues and  double  dealings  which  the  lawyer 
ascribes  to  his  opponents.  How  familiar  is 
the  brand  of  forensic  oratory  wherein  the 
eloquent  advocate,  after  pausing  to  inhale 
a  deep  breath,  says  in  full-throated  tones: 
"  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  I  ask  you  what 
you  would  have  done,  had  you  been  situated 
as  my  client  was.  I  ask  you!  and  I  ask  you!! 
and  I  ask  you!!! "  He  seems  to  ask  every 
man  in  the  jury  box,  but  the  emphasis  of  his 

83 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

final  pause  rests  on  the  juror  of  whom  he  is 
afraid — the  clam  juror — the 'one  whom  he 
wishes  to  bring  to  life,  no  matter  what  the 
consequences  may  be. 

How  can  a  salesman  use  the  methods  of 
an  evangelist  or  lawyer  in  opening  a  clam? 
First  of  all,  the  salesman  must  have  gained 
the  attention  of  his  clam.  The  evangelist 
and  lawyer  invariably  get  a  clam's  attention 
before  they  attempt  to  open  him.  Too  fre- 
quently, however,  the  salesman  tries  to  open 
a  clam  when  the  clam  is  thinking  of  some- 
thing else.  For  every  salesman  who  is  too 
slow  there  are  a  hundred  who  are  too  fast.  It 
pays  to  be  quick  and  adept  in  showing  or 
demonstrating  goods,  but  a  salesman  should 
not  use  his  heaviest  selling  talk  until  he  feels 
confident  his  prospect  is  ready  to  absorb  it. 
When  a  prospect  gives  tacit  assent,  without 
appearing  to  be  convinced,  it  doesn't  neces- 
sarily follow  that  he  is  a  simon-pure  clam. 
But  whatever  he  is,  you  must  open  his  mind 
before  you  can  reasonably  expect  to  sell  him. 

84 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

Assume  that  you  are  dealing  with  a  clam, 
how  are  you  going  to  open  him?  There  is  no 
infallible  general  rule  for  this,  any  more 
than  there  is  a  general  and  infallible  rule 
for  anything  else.  However,  we  may  be  able 
to  develop  a  useful  principle  of  more  or  less 
general  application.  Let  us  suppose  your 
clam  to  be  the  particular  kind  of  clam  that 
seems  to  admit  the  truth  of  what  you  say,  but 
steadfastly  maintains  an  attitude  which  is 
silently  expressive  of  that  disconcerting 
question,  "What  of  it?  " 

Long  before  the  world  at  large  became 
familiar  with  such  phrases  as  "  Add  up  your 
talk,"  or  "  Yes,  yes,  go  on,"  or  "Where  do 
you  get  that  stuff?  "  there  were  people  who 
would  listen  to  your  best  narrative  or  most 
convincing  argument,  and  then  say,  "  What 
of  it?  "  with  the  subtly  distorted  emphasis 
that  places  the  shameful  brand  of  slang  upon 
the  purest  of  words.  "  What  of  it?  "  has  gone 
out  of  use  as  a  vocal  slang  expression,  but 
there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  who  con- 

85 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

tinue  to  use  it  in  pantomime — who  slang  you 
by  their  silence.  To  be  slanged  silently  is 
one  of  the  most  trying  experiences  a  sales- 
man can  have.  How  is  it  to  be  avoided? 

I  have  a  friend  who  is  unconsciously  self- 
centered.  It  is  quite  possible  that  you  could 
rush  into  his  office  and  shout:  "  Your  house 
is  on  fire,"  without  immediately  arousing  his 
determination  to  make  all  haste  to  the  scene 
of  the  fire.  However,  if  you  first  said  to  him, 
"  Do  you  own  that  house  where  you  live? " 
and  then  told  him  that  the  house  was  burn- 
ing, he  would  instantly  seize  his  hat  and  rush 
away.  If  you  asked  him:  "  Is  U.  S.  Steel 
Common  a  good  buy? "  he  would  probably 
make  an  indifferent  answer,  but  if  you  first 
said  to  him :  "  Are  you  doing  anything  in  the 
stock  market  at  present? "  and  then  asked 
him  what  he  thought  of  Steel  Common,  he 
would  almost  certainly  give  you  a  complete 
and  sincere  expression  of  his  views. 

Do  these  distinctions  seem  elusive?  They 
reaJly  are  not.  To  bring  this  particular  man 

86 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

out  of  his  shell  quickly  and  get  him  instantly 
into  a  responsive  frame  of  mind,  it  is  usually 
necessary  to  invoke  thoughts  that  revolve 
around  himself  exclusively.  Merely  to  in- 
form him  that  his  house  is  on  fire  causes  him 
to  think  of  his  family,  the  furniture,  the  fire 
department,  the  insurance  policies,  the  neigh- 
bors and  perhaps  a  dozen  other  things.  The 
more  things  he  thinks  of,  the  slower  he  is 
to  realize  that  he,  individually,  should  take 
immediate  action  of  some  sort.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  you  first  require  his  mind  to  register 
the  thought:  "  Yes,  that  is  my  house,"  and 
you  then  tell  him  the  house  is  on  fire,  he 
instantly  says  to  himself.  "  It's  my  house. 
It  is  on  fire.  I  must  go  there  at  once.  Every- 
thing is  up  to  me"  Similarly,  if  you  ask 
him  whether  he  is  in  the  market  before  you 
inquire  what  he  thinks  of  Steel  Common,  his 
mind  evolves  for  your  benefit  the  same 
thoughts  it  would  produce  for  his  own  bene- 
fit, if  he  actually  had  under  consideration  the 
purchase  of  some  of  the  stock. 

87 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

In  attempting  to  develop  a  principle  of 
procedure  that  will  aid  salesmen  in  opening 
clams,  we  are  almost  certain  to  find  that  the 
only  way  to  open  a  clam  is  to  make  him  think 
acutely — even  painfully — of  himself.  In 
opening  a  clam,  a  salesman  should  not  be  im- 
personal. On  the  contrary,  he  should  be  just 
as  personal  as  possible  without  giving 
offense. 

Our  Minnesota  soldier  reader  was  for- 
merly a  salesman  of  phonographs.  When 
he  came  across  a  clam  who  neither  admitted 
nor  denied  the  excellence  of  the  phonograph 
he  was  attempting  to  sell,  how  would  it  have 
done  if  he  had  said:  "Do  you  want  to  be 
able  to  feel  that  you  have  given  your  family 
the  best  music  there  is — something  so  good 
that  no  one  can  have  anything  better?  Are 
you  willing  to  invest  enough  to  get  the  best 
for  your  home  and  your  family?  That's  what 
I  want  to  know.  You're  the  doctor;  what 
you  say  goes.  I  simply  want  you  to  tell  me 
whether  you  want  the  best  there  is." 

88 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

If  the  clam  says  he  wants  the  best,  he  has 
been  pried  open.  From  that  point  on  he  is 
a  regular  prospect  and  can  be  handled  in  the 
regular  way.  Even  if  he  says  he  can't  afford 
the  best,  he  has  been  partly  pried  open,  since 
the  discussion  is  then  on  intimately  personal 
grounds. 

You  can't  open  an  unresponsive  clam  by 
impersonal  talk  about  the  desirability  of  pos- 
sessing the  best  thing  there  is  on  the  market. 
You've  got  to  have  a  personal  showdown 
with  him  and  find  out  whether  he  wants  the 
best. 

In  attempting  to  open  the  evasive  clam, 
who  agrees  politely  with  what  you  say  but 
displays  no  real  conviction,  how  would  it 
do  to  say  to  him:  "  I  want  you  to  be  the 
judge.  I  want  you  to  decide  one  question, 
and  I  think  you  will  admit  that  it  is  a  fair 
one.  I  want  you  to  tell  me  just  what  you 
think."  Then  ask  the  question,  whatever  it 
happens  to  be.  The  chances  are  that  the 
polite  but  evasive  clam  will  answer  the  ques- 

89 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

tion  as  the  salesman  desires  it  answered.  If 
so,  the  salesman  might  very  properly  say: 
"  That  settles  it ;  you  want  this,  and  you 
don't  want  anything  else.  You  kept  it  to 
yourself,  but  I  felt  sure  you  appreciated  this 
quality.  I  felt  sure  I  couldn't  be  wrong 
about  that."  From  this  point  the  salesman's 
talk  should  proceed  on  the  assumption  that 
the  clam  is  going  to  buy  and  that  the  only 
question  is  when  he  is  going  to  buy.  A  sales- 
man shouldn't  start  to  make  a  sale  to  a  clam 
until  the  clam's  mind  is  open,  but  when  the 
clam  has  opened  his  mind,  he  can  ordinarily 
be  handled  in  the  same  way  as  any  other 
potential  buyer. 

In  your  efforts  to  open  a  clam,  you  natu- 
rally desire  to  avoid  offending  him,  but  in 
many  cases  you  must  run  the  risk  of  giving 
offense.  A  sincerely  friendly  way  of  per- 
sisting with  an  embarrassing  question  is  a 
great  aid,  if  not  an  absolute  essential,  to  the 
successful  opening  of  human  clams.  This 
qualification  is  one  that  almost  any  salesman 

90 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

can  acquire  through  intelligent  practice,  but 
having  gained  facility  in  opening  clams,  he 
should  be  careful  to  avoid  the  use  of  his  clam- 
opening  methods  on  people  who  are  not 
clams. 

The  evangelist  opens  a  clam  by  making 
the  clam  fearful  about  his  future  state.  The 
life  assurance  solicitor  causes  the  clam  to  pic- 
ture the  shamefulness  of  making  no  provision 
for  his  family  against  his  untimely  demise. 
The  salesman  endeavors  to  touch  the  clam's 
pride  without  wounding  it.  The  same  prin- 
ciple is  used  in  each  case  and  perhaps,  for  the 
purposes  of  salesmanship,  the  practice  can  be 
broadly  stated  thus:  Instead  of  trying  to 
argue  with  a  clam,  get  him  into  an  argument 
with  himself  and  then  go  ahead  and  sell  him. 


GETTING  THE  ORDER 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  letters  I  have 
ever  read  was  written  to  me  recently  by  a 
saleswoman  of  Indianapolis.  There  are  per- 
haps two  million  retail  salesmen  and  sales- 
women in  the  United  States.  I  possess  no 
means  of  knowing  what  percentage  of  these 
retail  sales  people  are  in  the  habit  of  think- 
ing introspectively  about  themselves  and 
constructively  about  their  daily  work,  but 
I  am  sure  that  nine-tenths  of  those  who  do  so 
have  more  or  less  frequent  experiences, 
wherein  a  failure  "  to  close  the  deal "  gives 
rise  to  unpleasant  doubts  in  their  own  minds 
of  their  abilities  as  salesmen — or  saleswomen. 
In  other  words,  most  thinking  salesmen,  no 
matter  how  successful  they  may  be,  have 
occasion  sometimes  to  chide  themselves  for 
losing  a  sale,  and  reason  to  doubt  if  nature 
really  intended  them  to  be  salesmen. 

I  am  going  to  give  you  all  of  the  Indian- 

92 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

apolis  letter,  as  every  sentence  seems  to  be 
pertinent.  It  is  a  letter  that  has  what  law- 
yers call  "  atmosphere."  Please  read  it 
carefully: 

I  have  read  with  more  than  passing  interest  your 
articles  on  salesmanship,  and  I  am  taking  advantage  of 
your  offer  at  the  end  of  them.  To  begin  with,  I  am,  or 
have  wished  to  be,  and  have  made  every  effort  to  be,  a 
saleswoman,  my  line  being  coats  and  suits  for  women. 
My  record  has  been  very  discouraging,  since  I  have 
spent  almost  seven  years  at  it,  conscientiously  trying 
to  make  a  success,  and  in  every  instance,  have  been  "let 
out" — kindly,  but  nevertheless  let  out — and  I  am  at  a 
loss  to  account  for  it.  Since  I  am  a  woman,  may  I  be 
pardoned  if  I  say  that  I  have  been  credited1  with  a 
pleasing  personality,  and  in  no  instance  have  I  lost  a 
position  through  any  complaint  on  the  part  of  a  cus- 
tomer; I  seem  able  to  interest  them  in  my  line,  and 
am,  or  have  been  (although  I  am  at  the  present  time 
filling  a  clerical  position)  very  anxious  to  find  a  color 
and  style,  both  of  which  are  very  important  factors  in 
selling  to  a  woman,  to  suit  my  customer.  I  am  able  to 
interest  them,  but  cannot  "close  the  deal"  often  enough 
to  justify  my  employer  in  continuing  me  in  his  service. 
Of  course,  I  realize  that  a  certain  amount  of  training 

93 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

is  necessary  in  this  line  as  well  as  in  all  others;  but 
my  experience  in  the  game  should  have  been  a  training, 
which  I  seem  to  have  failed  to  obtain,  but  for  what 
reason  I  am  unable  to  state — hence  this  letter  to  you. 
I  wish  to  say,  without  being  thought  vain,  that  my 
customers  are  invariably  kind,  and  seem  to  appreciate 
my  efforts  to  please  them  even  to  the  extent  sometimes 
of  complimenting  me  to  my  floor  manager,  or  to  the 
buyer;  but  that  doesn't  sell  the  goods.  At  times  cus- 
tomers have  presumed  on  my  known  courtesy  to  take 
up  my  time  as  well  as  that  of  my  firm  in  looking  at 
articles  they  probably  have  no  intention  of  purchasing ; 
right  here  let  me  say  that  there  are  many  women  who 
spend  their  leisure  time  in  just  that  manner,  and  the 
word  "shopping"  has  come  to  mean  anything  but  a 
prospective  buyer  in  the  minds  of  the  majority  of 
salespeople.  Of  course,  these  women  buy,  some  place 
and  some  time,  and  for  that  reason  I  have  never  yielded 
to  the  perfectly  natural  desire  to  slight  them.  As 
you  know,  most  employees  in  that  line  are  paid  a  salary 
and  commission,  and  time  means  a  great  deal  in  their 
business,  and  none  of  it  must  be  wasted  if  a  sales- 
person is  to  make  good  with  the  firm  oil  earn  enough 
money  to  live  on.  I  have  had  talks  with  many  floormen, 
who,  as  a  rule,  are  good  business  men,  for,  contrary  to 
the  common  idea  of  a  floor  manager,  he  must  be  in  that 

94 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

department,  at  least,  a  keenly  intelligent  man,  and  I 
have  had  no  word  of  censure  for  my  work,  but  they 
agreed  with  me  that  for  some  season  I  was  not  a 
success. 

I  have  reluctantly  come  to  the  conclusion  that  one 
must  have  a  natural  gift  for  selling,  just  as  another 
has  a  natural  singing  voice,  and  that  training  is  an 
adjunct,  but  not  an  absolute  necessity  for  a  salesman 
who  has  a  natural  aptitude  for  such  work. 

I  will  merely  mention  in  passing,  that  I  was  com- 
pelled to  enter  the  business  world  after  many  years  of 
wedded  life,  which  is  not,  to  say  the  least,  conducive 
to  a  successful  career  as  a  business  woman.  But  the 
necessity  arose,  and  with  the  "pleasing  personality" 
of  which  I  spoke  in  the  earlier  part  of  my  letter,  and 
on  the  advice  of  friends  who  were  pleased  to  think  I 
was  especially  fitted  by  Dame  Nature  to  fill  such  a 
place,  and  for  other  reasons,  such  as  the  fact  that  the 
"days  of  my  youth"  were  far  more  easily  counted  in  the 
past  than  they  could  be  in  the  future,  I  asked  for  and 
got,  a  nice  position  in  one  of  the  highest  class  stores 
in  my  city,  where  my  training,  if  I  had  had  any  apti- 
tude for  that  class  of  work,  would  have  landed  me  in 
a  much  better  place  than  I  have  ever  been  able  to 
obtain.  I  have  talked  with  one  or  two  of  my  employers 
on  this  subject,  for  I  am  not  easily  discouraged.  They 
95 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

both  said  there  was  no  apparent  reason  for  my  failure, 
and  that  success  would  come.  But  I  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  seven  years  is  long  enough  to  wait  for 
success,  in  one  line,  and  so  I  made  a  change. 

However,  this  change  is  only  temporary  in  its  na- 
ture, and  I  am  now  contemplating  a  return  to  my  old 
business  of  selling  ready-made  garments  for  women; 
as  that  is  my  only  hope  for  a  living.  I  dread  the 
plunge,  because  of  the  failure  I  have  been,  and  yet  I 
have  no  alternative.  It  is  all  I  know  how  to  do  in 
business  life  and  I  am  too  old  to  train  for  any  other 
line.  Can  you  advise  me  as  to  what  is  wrong  ?  I  feel 
it  must  be  me,  or  my  customers  and  employers  would 
not  talk  so  kindly  to  me.  If  I  were  not  willing  to 
work  and  conscientious  in  my  manner  of  doing  it,  they 
would  not  be  so  kind  as  to  say  things  like  that.  On  the 
other  hand,  if — well — if  you  can  help  me  by  telling 
me  where  my  fault  lies  and  how  I  can  remedy  it,  you 
would  certainly  confer  a  lasting  obligation  on  one 
reader  who  is  very  much  concerned  over  the  way  she 
is  going  to  earn  her  living.  If  you  care  to  publish  my 
letter,  do  so,  but  it  may  seem  too  insignificant  to  your 
trained  mind  to  be  of  interest  to  others;  but  I  should 
like  very,  very  much  to  have  your  advice  on  a  subject 
which  is  very  vital  to  me  at  this  present  writing. 
Hoping  I  have  not  taken  up  too  much  of  your  time 
96 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

with  my  troubles,  and  wishing  to  excuse  myself  for 
doing  so  on  the  grounds  that  I  took  your  offer  to  help 
too  literally,  perhaps,  and  asking  your  pardon  for  it,  if 
that  proves  to  be  the  case,  I  am 

After  reading  this  letter  I  feel  very  much 
as  a  physician  might  when  he  is  able  to  assure 
a  patient  that  the  latter  does  not  suffer  from 
a  suspected  organic  affliction. 

The  lady  says:  "  I  have  reluctantly  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  one  must  have  a  nat- 
ural gift  for  selling,  just  as  another  has  a 
natural  singing  voice,  and  that  training  is 
an  adjunct  but  not  an  absolute  necessity  for 
a  salesman  who  has  a  natural  aptitude  for 
such  work." 

In  my  opinion,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
"  natural  gift  for  selling."  One  may  have 
natural  gifts,  which,  if  properly  developed 
and  utilized,  will  make  one  an  exceptional 
salesman,  but  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  born 
salesman,  any  more  than  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  born  race  horse.  A  thoroughbred  colt 
may  be  perfect  physically  and  come  from 

7  97 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

a  family  of  winners,  but  he  can  never  be  a 
winner  without  training.  Left  to  himself, 
he  will  fail  to  take  sufficient  exercise  to  de- 
velop his  heart,  lungs  and  motive  muscles  in 
the  manner  in  which  they  must  be  developed 
if  he  is  to  become  a  winner.  There  is  no 
born  race  horse  and  there  is  no  born  sales- 
man, but  there  is  the  important  difference 
between  the  two  that  a  human  being  can 
train  himself,  while  a  horse  cannot.  Horses 
have  only  instinct  as  their  guide;  men  and 
women  have  intelligence.  Good  salesman- 
ship is  the  product  of  intelligence  habitually 
applied  to  the  salesman's  daily  intercourse 
with  his  potential  customers. 

I  can  assure  the  lady  from  Indianapolis 
that  she  can  become  a  good  saleswoman. 
She  may  not  achieve  phenomenal  success,  but 
I  am  sure  she  has  no  faults  that  cannot  be 
minimized  to  a  point  where  she  is,  at  least, 
certain  of  making  a  comfortable  living  as 
a  saleswoman.  I  do  not  know  her.  I  can- 
not diagnose  her  individual  case  from  her 

98 


YOU  FEEL  AS  IF  YOU  OUGHT  TO  PROPOSE  MARRIAGE  TO  HER 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

letter  and  administer  a  specific  remedy 
through  the  pages  of  this  book,  but  I  should 
like  to  address  'all  salesmen  who  believe,  or 
have  been  told,  that  they  possess  this  strange 
thing,  "  a  pleasant  personality." 

If  you  are  a  salesman  and  believe  that  you 
have  a  "  pleasant  personality,"  you  are  con- 
fronted by  two  perils.  You  may  overplay 
your  personality — or  you  may  underplay  it. 
In  either  case  you  think  too  much  about 
yourself  and  not  enough  about  your  cus- 
tomer. I  know  of  an  apothecary  shop  in 
which  is  employed  a  good-looking  girl  clerk 
who  has  the  kind  of  personality  which  smiles 
and  shows  its  teeth  and  wiggles — yes,  liter- 
ally wiggles.  When  she  approaches  you  to 
learn  what  brand  of  cigar  you  want,  you  feel 
as  if  you  ought  to  propose  marriage  to  her, 
if  you  happen  to  be  unmarried,  or,  if  mar- 
ried, that  you  should  promise  to  do  some- 
thing for  her  in  your  will.  Only  yesterday 
I  visited  this  place  to  buy  three  articles.  I 
bought  one,  thrust  it  into  my  pocket  and 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

escaped  without  the  other  two.  The  young 
lady  put  me  positively  into  a  panic.  She 
used  her  personality  until  it  hurt.  Without 
doubt  she  was  thinking:  "  How  nice  I  am  to 
this  poor  drab  man.  I'm  treating  him  so 
much  differently  than  most  sales  girls  would 
treat  that  type  of  man.  I'll  bet  he  appre- 
ciates it." 

She  did  treat  me  differently,  but  I  didn't 
appreciate  it.  Instead,  I  got  nervous  and 
frightened.  The  young  lady  overplayed  her 
personality.  I  wonder  if  our  Indianapolis 
lady  is  at  all  like  our  apothecary  lady.  I 
wonder  if  she  renders  the  Indianapolis  dow- 
agers, matrons  and  misses  a  trifle  uncomfort- 
able by  too  much  personality.  I  notice  she 
makes  it  a  point  to  select  becoming  colors 
and  styles.  Does  she  do  it  tactfully,  or  does 
her  personality  strike  a  patronizing  note 
which  unpleasantly  reminds  the  sallow 
woman  of  her  yellow  sfldn  and  the  stout 
woman  of  her  embonpoint? 

If  my  Indianapolis  lady  misuses  here  per- 
loo 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

sonality,  I  am  rather  confident  that  she  over- 
plays it.  The  vividness  of  her  letter 
indicates  that  she  would  not  be  likely  to 
underplay  anything.  However,  there  is  the 
barest  chance  that  she  may  underplay  her 
personality.  A  noticeably  restrained  per- 
sonality among  salesmen  and  saleswomen  is 
particularly  a  Fifth  Avenue  vice,  yet  it  is 
not  confined  solely  to  Fifth  Avenue.  Re- 
strained personality  is  like  a  too-tightly  laced 
corset.  Neither  is  comfortable  and  neither 
deceives  any  one.  The  abstracted  and  con- 
descending attitude  of  a  salesman,  who  is 
conscious  of  his  personality  but  has  it  on 
leash,  is  just  as  offensive  and  non-productive 
as  the  gushing  eccentricities  of  a  salesman 
who  gives  full  swing  to  his  personality.  If 
you  think  you  have  a  "  pleasant  personal- 
ity," you  are  pretty  sure  to  pose,  and  no 
really  good  salesman  is  a  poseur.  Be  sin- 
cerely agreeable.  Learn — before  a  mirror  if 
necessary — how  to  greet  a  customer,  and 

after  that  forget  yourself.    If  you  have  what 
101 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

you  think  is  personality,  leave  all  of  it  at 
home  except  that  which  you  use  in  saying 
good  morning  or  good  afternoon.  If  you 
really  have  a  pleasant  personality,  you  will 
never  know  it.  A  self-conscious  person  can- 
not have  a  truly  pleasant  personality. 

What  has  the  foregoing  to  do  with  Getting 
the  Order?  Simply  this:  To  get  the  order, 
unless  the  resolve  to  buy  takes  place  in  your 
customer's  mind  without  the  necessity  of 
salesmanship  on  your  part,  you  must  forget 
yourself  and  adopt  his  viewpoint.  You 
should  endeavor  to  think  of  the  article  as  he 
is  thinking  of  it.  When  you  attempt  to 
intrigue  his  interest  in  a  given  article,  you 
should  emphasize  his  views — not  your  own. 
Instead  of  saying,  "  I  recommend  this,"  it  is 
better  to  say,  "  Here  is  something  that  will 
please  you,  I  think."  Rather  than  say  to 
madam,  "  Here  is  a  color  that  I  think  you 
can  wear,"  it  is  better  to  say  to  her:  "  You 
will  like  this  shade,  I  feel  quite  confident." 

When  a  salesman  desires  to  point  out  the 

102 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

superior  qualities  of  his  merchandise,  he 
should  respectfully  indicate  his  conviction 
that  his  customer  has  the  capacity  for  appre- 
ciative interest.  Instead  of  glibly  parroting 
that  a  bolt  of  silk  is  "  the  best  grade  of  genu- 
ine Lyons  silk,"  he  might  say:  "  As  you  are 
probably  aware,  over  thirty  per  cent,  of  the 
silk  looms  in  Lyons  are  idle;  therefore,  you 
will  be  interested  to  know  that  this  is  a  genu- 
ine piece  of  Lyons  silk  which  we  succeeded 
in  getting  past  the  submarines.  It  is  the 
very  highest  grade,  too — but  I  needn't  tell 
you  that.  The  quality  is  quite  apparent, 
isn't  it? " 

Intriguing  and  developing  a  customer's 
interest  constitute  a  well-defined  phase  of 
salesmanship.  I  touch  upon  the  subject  now 
merely  to  emphasize  that  in  every  step  of  a 
sale  the  salesman  should  speak  through, 
rather  than  to,  the  mind  of  the  buyer.  He 
should  make  every  statement  seem  to  draw 
upon  the  buyer's  knowledge  and  express  the 
buyer's  thoughts. 

103 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

That  we  may  now  progress  rapidly  to  the 
ultimate  phase  of  a  sale,  let  us  suppose  that 
our  hypothetical  customer  has  reached  a 
point  where  he — or  she — really  wants  the 
article  we  are  trying  to  sell.  Such  being  the 
case,  how  do  we  "  close  the  deal "?  If  we  are 
good  salesmen,  we  don't  coax,  we  don't  urge, 
we  don't  cajole.  We  don't  say:  "  This  will 
look  lovely  on  you.  I  think  you  really  should 
take  it,  before  someone  else  gets  it."  If  we 
said  that,  it  would  be  a  backward  step;  it 
would  have  a  tendency  to  re-open  a  question 
that  should  be  foreclosed  before  we  make  our 
first  attempt  to  get  the  order.  Here  is  a  rule 
which  no  salesman — or  saleswoman — should 
ever  forget:  Don't  try  to  get  the  order  until 
you  know  you  have  made  your  customer 
want  the  goods.  Then  go  forward;  never 
retrace  your  steps.  Say  nothing  and  do 
nothing  that  is  not  predicated  on  the  con- 
viction that  your  customer  is  going  to  take 
the  goods  and  that  the  only  question  is  when. 

When  is  the  big  unspoken  word  in  "  get- 

104 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

ting  the  order."  If  your  customer  wants  an 
article  there  is  almost  certain  to  be  a  definite 
time  when  he  desires  to  use  it.  If  the  article 
is  wearing  apparel,  there  is  likely  to  be  an 
occasion  when  his  vanity  urges  that  he  parade 
it.  If  the  article  is  household  furniture  there 
is  a  time  when  it  will  be  particularly  desired 
for  use  or  display.  No  matter  what  the  ar- 
ticle is,  if  your  customer  really  wants  it,  there 
is  a  more  or  less  definite  time  when  he  would 
like  to  use  it.  In  some  cases  you  can  surmise 
when  that  time  is.  One  reason  why  the 
Christmas  trade  is  so  brisk  is  because  retail 
sales  people  know  that  shoppers  want  goods 
for  Christmas,  and  the  confident  assurance 
of  the  sales  people  helps  to  close  sales. 

It  is  easy  to  close  jewelry  sales  in  June  and 
firecracker  sales  on  the  Fourth  of  July.  You 
know  your  customers  want  the  goods  right 
away  and  you  proceed,  with  supreme  confi- 
dence, to  get  their  orders.  A  similar  con- 
fidence is  helpful  in  closing  a  sale  at  any 
time. 

105 


THE  TRAINING  OP  A  SALESMAN 

Madam  likes  a  suit  but  seems  to  hesitate. 
You  might  say:  "  You  will  want  the  suit  by 
next  Sunday,  at  the  latest.  We  can  manage 
that  nicely  if  we  get  the  fitter  started  right 
away.  There  is  just  enough  time  if  we  com- 
(tnandeer  a  fitter  this  afternoon.  To  be  prop- 
erly done,  the  alterations  require  time,  and 
I  particularly  don't  want  this  hurried.  I 
want  it  to  be  a  beautifully  tailored  garment." 

Don't  ask  her  if  she  will;  just  assume  that 
she  will,  and  say  to  yourself:  "  You're  going 
to  take  it;  you're  going  to  take  it.  I  know 
you're  going  to  take  it." 

That  is  one  way  to  get  an  order,  whether 
from  a  woman  who  is  pricing  a  new  suit,  or  a 
man  who  is  "  thinking  "  of  buying  a  new 
motor  car. 

I  could  multiply  illustrations  of  the  use  of 
when  in  closing  a  sale,  but  I  doubt  if  that  is 
necessary.  You  can  close  almost  any  sale 
by  the  "  when  "  formula,  if  you  have  begun 
the  sale  properly  by  getting  your  customer's 
undivided  attention,  then  intrigued  his  in- 

106 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

terest;  and  finally  made  him  really  want  the 
goods.  If  the  first  three  steps  of  a  sale  are 
effectually  accomplished,  the  fourth — clos- 
ing— is  not  difficult.  Poor  closers  are  inva- 
riably poor  beginners. 

Dear  lady  from  Indianapolis,  have  you 
gained  so  much  as  a  single  thought  that  will 
aid  you?  If  you  feel  that  you  have  not,  read 
it  all  again.  I  truly  believe  that  your  keen 
intelligence  will  extract  at  least  one  idea  that 
may  be  helpful  to  you. 

I  have  an  interesting  letter  from  a  sales- 
man in  Paducah,  Ky.,  and  quote  as  follows: 

I  am  employed  by  one  of  the  largest  retail  clothing 
houses  in  Kentucky  and  probably  the  largest  in  west 
Kentucky.  We  have  built  up  our  trade  chiefly  with 
the  country  people,  such  as  farmers,  traders,  etc.  Al- 
though I  have  been  in  the  retail  business  all  my  life, 
this  is  without  a  doubt  the  most  difficult  trade  to  sell  I 
ever  experienced;  the  reasons  are,  first,  because  they 
do  not  want  to  pay  the  price  for  merchandise,  and  al- 
though they  are  getting  more  than  double  their  original 
price  for  their  products,  still  they  do  not  realize  that 
our  merchandise  has  advanced  too.  We  have  quite  a 
107 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

bit  of  trouble  with  some  who  do  mail  order  business. 
For  instance,  a  man  came  in  our  store  the  other  day  for 
a  pair  of  boy's  overalls.  My  price  was  90  cents.  He 
would  not  buy,  because  he  said  he  could  "send  off"  and 
get  them  for  79  cents.  Second,  if  you  price  a  suit  of 
clothes  to  a  "yokel"  at  $15  and  he  says,  "I  will  give 
you  $10," or  most  any  price,  what  can  any  salesman  do? 

The  problem  which  you  describe  is  an  im- 
portant one  and  should  be  disposed  of  before 
you  make  your  attempt  to  "  close  the  deal." 
If  your  goods  are  right  and  your  prices  are 
right,  you  need  have  no  fears.  The  farmer  is 
a  wise  old  owl.  He  appreciates  values,  but 
tobacco  buyers,  wheat  buyers,  mule  buyers 
and  others,  who  bargain  for  his  products, 
have  taught  him  to  haggle.  I  can't  believe 
that  you  are  selling  an  all-wool  suit  for  $15, 
but  assuming  that  you  were  and  that  your 
'farmer  customer  objected  to  the  price  and 
offered  $10,  how  would  it  do  to  ask  him  what 
he  paid  for  this  same  kind  of  suit  two  years 
ago?  Suppose  he  answers  $10.  Then  ask 
him  what  he  was  getting  for  corn,  wheat, 
tobacco  and  mules  two  years  ago.  Next, 

108 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

ask  him  if  he  has  been  watching  the  wool 
market.  As  the  final  clincher,  tell  him  that 
you  will  try  to  get  permission  to  sell  the  suit 
for  ten  dollars,  if  he  will  agree  to  sell  you  ten 
bushels  of  corn  at  the  same  price  he  got  for 
his  corn  two  years  ago.  Do  all  this  pleas- 
antly— not  pugnaciously.  The  farmer  knows 
that  he  ought  to  pay  more  for  clothing  now 
than  he  paid  two  years  ago.  Nevertheless  he 
feels  it  his  duty  to  protest. 

When  your  farmer  customer  objects  to 
your  price  of  90  cents  and  says  that  he  can 
"  send  off  "  to  a  mail  order  house  and  get  a 
pair  of  overalls  for  79  cents,  call  his  atten- 
tion to  the  difference  between  tobacco  leaf 
and  lugs,  and  also  remind  him  of  the  differ- 
ent grades  of  corn.  Suggest  that  he  get  a 
pair  of  the  79  cent  mail  order  overalls  and 
have  his  boy  wear  them  in  comparison  with  a 
pair  of  your  90-cent  overalls.  Ask  him 
if  he  doesn't  think  the  mail  order  catalog 
is  a  fine  piece  of  printing.  Inquire  what  he 
thinks  it  costs.  Ask  him  if  he  thinks  a  dollar 

109 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

and  a  half  for  paper,  printing  and  postage, 
would  be  too  much.  Suggest  that  some  day 
he  put  this  question  to  the  local  printer.  Call 
his  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  mail  order 
people  claim  to  reach  millions  of  customers 
through  their  catalogs.  Ten  million  cus- 
tomers would  mean  that  they  spend  fifteen 
million  dollars  for  catalogs  alone;  a  fifteen 
million  dollar  expense  before  they  can  sell  a 
dollar's  worth  of  goods.  Part  of  that  is  in 
the  price  of  79-cent  overalls.  Ask  him  if  he 
really  thinks  the  mail  order  houses  can  give 
better  values  than  you  can.  Remind  him, 
too,  of  the  postage  stamp  and  money  order 
which  he  must  buy,  the  transportation 
charges  he  must  pay  and  the  delays  he  must 
endure,  if  he  buys  from  a  mail  order  house. 

Here  is  a  letter  from  a  Newark,  N.  J., 
clothing  salesman: 

I  sell  men's  clothing  at  retail.     Figuring  the  total 
amount  of  my  sales  I  would  probably  be  considered  a 
successful  salesman  in  that  line.    Every  person  coming 
110 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

into  the  department  is  considered  by  me  to  be  a  poten- 
tial buyer,  even  though  his  actions  or  words,  upon  ap- 
proaching him,  would  indicate  he  is  merely  shopping. 
I  give  them  all  my  best  attention,  and  in  many,  many 
instances  a  man  "merely  looking  around"  has  been 
sold,  but  sometimes  I  feel  too  much  time  has  been 
spent  with  a  "shopper"  or  a  slow  buyer,  especially 
during  a  busy  period.  Now  my  problem  is,  when  shall 
I  "lay  off"  such  a  person,  and  how  can  I  diplomatically 
urge  him  to  make  up  his  mind  ?  He  gives  no  intimation 
either  by  word  or  sign  that  he  will  not  buy,  he  continues 
looking  at  the  stock  and  asking  questions.  I  am  there- 
fore reluctant  to  leave  him,  as  he  may  feel  he  is  not 
receiving  proper  attention,  nor  can  I  tell  him  to  hurry 
up  and  make  up  his  mind.  In  the  meantime,  I  am 
losing  a  turn  with  some  other  prospective  customer. 

If  you  will  give  me  your  opinion  on  this  question,  I 
shall  greatly  appreciate  it. 

I  should  say  that  either  the  Newark  man 
is  too  impatient  or  does  not  sufficiently  de- 
velop a  customer's  interest  in  the  one  particu- 
lar suit  to  which  the  customer  seems  most 
attracted.  If  a  shopper  gives  no  hint  of  his 
preference,  I  think  it  is  good  salesmanship 

for  the  salesman  to  select  a  suit  which  he  con- 
111 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

siders  suitable  in  respect  of  fabric,  style  and 
color,  and  endeavor  to  center x  the  prospect's 
interest  on  that  particular  suit.  The  desir- 
able impression  to  give  the  potential  buyer  of 
clothing  (either  tailored  to  order  or  ready 
made)  is  that  he  has  had  a  wide  variety  from 
which  to  make  a  selection,  but  that  there  is 
one  fabric  or  suit  which  stands  out  above  all 
others  as  the  fabric  or  suit  he  should  have. 
When  you  get  your  customer  interested  in 
a  certain  suit,  the  next  step  is  to  make  him 
want  it.  Remember,  that  no  matter  how 
carelessly  he  is  attired,  or  how  much  emphasis 
he  may  put  on  utility,  wearing  quality,  cost 
and  other  practical  phases  of  the  contem- 
plated purchase,  he  is  really  wondering  how 
he  is  going  to  look  and  what  his  friends  will 
think  of  his  new  suit.  Within  proper  limita- 
tions a  clothing  salesman  should  aid  his  pro- 
spective customer  in  forming  a  pleasant  men- 
tal picture  of  himself  in  the  new  suit.  Don't 
say  anything  so  trite  as:  "  That  color  is  be- 
coming to  you  and  the  suit  is  a  perfect  fit." 
112 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

Instead,  say  something  that  has  a  little 
punch  in  it;  for  example:  "  We've  got  a  car- 
load of  fine  clothing  here,  but  I  believe  this 
suit  is  your  one  best  bet.  Color,  fabric  and 
style  of  tailoring — everything — seem  to  be 
exactly  right  for  you." 

Assuming  that  you  have  brought  your  cus- 
tomer to  a  state  of  mind  wherein  he  really 
wants  a  certain  suit  of  clothing,  there  is  no 
better  closing  talk  than  our  old  reliable  and 
aforesaid  "  when."  If  there  are  no  altera- 
tions to  be  made,  the  salesman  might  say: 
"  This  is  a  Fifth  Avenue  fit,  so  there  won't 
be  any  delay.  I  can  get  it  out  to  your  house 
to-night,  I  think,  if  I  have  it  packed  right 
away."  After  he  has  said  that,  he  shouldn't 
recede.  He  shouldn't  reiterate,  except  inci- 
dentally, the  good  qualities  of  the  suit.  He 
should  proceed  on  the  assumption  that  the 
suit  is  bought  and  that  the  time  and  place  of 
delivery  are  the  only  remaining  questions. 

The  time  to  "lay  off"  of  a  shopper  is 
when  you  have  tried  and  failed  to  close — or 

8  113 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

have  been  unable  even  to  develop  his  interest 
and  desire  to  a  point  where  it  seems  advisable 
to  attempt  to  close.  One  graceful  way  to 
admit  your  defeat  is  to  say:  "  The  best  test 
of  how  you  will  like  this  suit  is  to  think  the 
matter  over  for  a  couple  of  days  and  then 
come  back  and  look  at  the  suit  again.  Here's 
my  card.  I'll  note  the  stock  number  on  the 
card.  When  you  come  back,  ask  for  me  and 
we'll  size  up  the  suit  again.  If  you  like  it 
then  as  well  as  you  do  now,  you  can  be  sure 
that  you'll  never  grow  tired  of  it." 

The  foregoing  method,  or  some  adaptation 
of  it,  gets  rid  of  a  customer  who  isn't  ready 
to  buy,  and  offers  some  chance  that  he  may 
come  back  to  you. 


GOOD  SALESMANSHIP  BADLY 
DONE 

A  RAILROAD  official,  with  headquarters  in 
Boston,  wrote  me  the  following  letter  and  a 
few  days  later  scolded  me  for  not  answer- 
ing it: 

Dear  Sir: 

I  read  one  of  your  recent  articles  and  noted  with 
much  interest  the  various  types  of  salesmen  with  whom 
you  are  familiar,  and  particularly  a  phrase  which  you 
used,  concerning  the  "dead  ones  being  made  live  ones 
when  they  go  out." 

I  am  not  a  salesman,  and  never  expect  to  be,  and 
possibly  my  writing  you  does  not  carry  out  your 
suggestion  entirely,  with  respect  to  that  presented  in 
the  last  paragraph  of  your  article.  My  only  desire  in 
writing  you  is  to  present  my  personal  views  regarding 
somes  types  of  salesmen  with  whom  I  have  dealt,  and 
who  possibly  possess  the  proper  traits  to  qualify  them 
as  100  per  cent,  gainers,  but  who  personally  give  me 
the  horrors. 

As  far  as  I  am  concerned,  they  never  have,  and 
115 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

never  will  sell  me  a  nickel's  worth  over  that  which  I 
originally  intended  to  buy. 

For  example,  I  go  into  a  gents'  furnishing  store, 
and  ask  to  see,  and  I  buy,  some  neckwear.  In  this  par- 
ticular store,  it  seems  that  a  salesman  can  sell  anything 
purchasable,  and  while  the  ties  are  being  done  up,  he 
starts  something  like  this : 

How  are  you  fixed  for  underwear  ? 

I  am  all  set. 

Well,  you  want  tor  consider  that  the  Government  is 
going  to  be  responsible  for  your  getting  garments  with 
much  difficulty  next  year. 

Yes,  I  am  aware  of  that. 

Could  I  show  you  some  paj  amas  j  ust  in  from  Japan  ? 

We  are  running  a  nice  line  of  shirts.  The  silk 
ones  are  the  last  ones  we  expect  to  be  able  to  get  for 
some  time.  I  would  like  to  show  them  to  you. 

No,  I  have  a  full  supply  of  madras  shirts,  which 
give  me  satisfaction. 

And  so  he  goes  down  the  line,  enumerating  all  the 
articles  in  the  store,  finally  winding  up  with  the  biggest 
thing  they  carry,  "a  suit  of  clothes,"  and  which  would 
be  the  last  thing  I  would  buy  in  a  store  of  that  kind. 

I  realize  that  it  took  me  much  longer  to  write  this 
fellow's  spiel  than  it  would  for  him  to  put  it  over,  but 
please  keep  in  mind  that  I  am  one  of  those  people  who 
116 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

go  into  a  store  to  purchase  only  what  I  have  made  up 
my  mind  to  get,  and  after  coming  through  my  degree, 
which  to  my  mind  has  been  an  embarrassing  rather 
than  a  pleasurable  experience,  I  come  out  very  much 
peeved. 

The  salesman  has  not  only  failed  in  his  attempts 
to  make  a  sale,  but  in  my  case  he  has  been  the  cause 
of  his  firm  losing  a  customer,  because  of  his  attitude 
toward  same. 

Now,  perhaps  in  this  case  I  (the  customer)  am  an 
exception  to  the  general  rule,  and  maybe  could  be 
classed1  with  those  fellows  who  keep  saying  to  them- 
selves, "I  am  right  and  the  world  is  wrong,"  and  that 
while  I  will  not  return,  there  may  be  many  other  con- 
verts to  this  system,  and  continue  to  go  nowhere  else. 

I  have  made  this  statement  many  times,  that  if  I 
were  a  salesman,  I  would  give  a  customer  exactly  what 
he  asked  for,  provided  I  had  it,  and  would  not  solicit 
his  patronage,  of  a  lot  of  articles  he  never  intended 
buying.  In  saying  this,  I  realize  that  this  system 
would  not  make  it  necessary  to  have  genuine  salesmen. 
That  ordinary  mechanical  men  could  sell,  and  that 
perhaps  there  would  be  no  incentive  for  a  live  one  to 
go  into  the  business.  I  have  my  doubts,  however,  that 
the  profession  would  lose  any  of  its  interest,  and  I  feel 
that  a  fellow  could  be  a  success  if  he  carried  out  my 
117 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

views  by  sticking  to  the  delivery  of  the  goods  as  asked 
for,  instead  of  soliciting  that  uncalled  for. 

What  do  you  think  ? 

One  more  case  is  the  one  of  going  into  any  hat  store 
on  the  change  of  seasons  and  getting  up  against  the 
old  hat-salesman,  who  has  been  the  champion  hat- 
salesman  for  his  firm  for  years.  (Hat  salesmen  seem 
to  stick  a  long  while.) 

If  you  have  been  wearing  a  soft,  wide-brimmed  hat, 
you  want  a  derby,  and  the  only  line  they  carry  is  very 
unbecoming  to  start  with.  Mr.  Salesman  pulls  the 
old  one,  "Well,  it  looks  strange  to  you  because  you  have 
been  wearing  a  soft  hat.  You  have  to  get  used  to  it." 
It  makes  no  difference  what  the  ailment  is,  you  have  to 
get  used  to  it,  regardless  of  how  it  looks,  and  it  makes 
no  difference  what  you  have  been  wearing,  straw,  golf, 
felt,  or  soldier  hat.  Whatever  you  have  on,  that  is  the 
cause  of  your  not  getting  acquainted  with  your  new 
sky-piece. 

I  am  34  years  old,  and  have  been  buying  hats,  all 
kinds  and  all  sizes,  since  I  was  15,  and  during  this 
purchasing  period,  I  have  yet  to  find  a  case  where  I 
went  into  a  hat  store  that  the  salesman  did  not  tell 
me  that  I  had  to  get  used  to  the  change,  in  order  to 
sell  his  goods. 

I  do  not  think  that  this  fellow  is  a  salesman.  He  is 
118 


'IT  LOOKS  STRANGE  TO  YOU  BECAUSE  YOU  HAVE  BEEN  WEARING  A  SOFT  HAT' 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

an  ordinary  mechanical  man,  that  can  only  sell  goods 
to  those  to  whom  they  are?  particularly  adapted. 

To  bring  this  to  a  close,  I  have  been  a  live  one  going 
in,  but  the  salesman  has  made  me  a  dead  one  coming 
out. 

I  like  this  letter,  don't  you?  I've  had  the 
same  thing  happen  to  me  and  so  have  you. 
It's  good  salesmanship  badly  done. 

"  How  are  you  fixed  for  underwear? "  is 
a  somewhat  intimate  question,  and  a  good 
deal  depends  on  the  way  it  is  asked.  I  like 
beefsteak  and  I  also  like  eggs.  There  is  a 
country  hotel  in  Tennessee  which  serves  de- 
liciously  tender  steaks  and  wonderfully 
fresh  eggs,  but  they  have  a  negro  waiter  who 
robs  these  delightful  viands  of  their  charm 
by  his  heavy  and  unenthusiastic  question, 
"  How  yoh  want  yoh  stek  and  how'll  you 
have  your  aigs  cooked?  " 

I  could  have  enjoyed  the  specialities  of 
this  house  to  a  much  greater  extent  if  the 
waiter  had  said  to  me,  "  Boss,  I  got  a  nice 
tender  T-bone  steak  for  you  and  a  couple 

119 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

of  fresh  eggs  that  two  young  hens  done  laid 
for  you  today.  How  you  want  me  to  have 
the  cook  fix  'em  up  for  you?  " 

If  I  were  a  retail  salesman  in  a  clothing 
store  I  don't  think  I  should  ask  any  one, 
"  How  are  you  fixed  for  underwear?  "  In- 
stead, I  believe  I  should  hand  out  a  sample 
garment  and  say,  "  Perhaps  you've  stocked 
up  on  underwear,  but  if  you  haven't  here  is 
something  that  is  worthy  of  consideration." 

Scarcely  any  man  is  able  to  avoid  feeling 
at  least  a  little  interest  in  an  article  of  mer- 
chandise that  is  placed  in  his  hands.  Even 
a  crusty  bachelor  will  take  a  keen,  although 
frequently  a  painful,  interest  in  a  squirming 
baby  placed  in  his  unwilling  arms. 

I  think  that  our  Boston  railroad  official's 
desire  to  escape  with  his  cravats,  without 
being  canvassed  on  underwear  and  other 
articles  of  male  attire,  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
his  interest  is  not  easily  intrigued.  If  retail 
salesmen  were  really  able  to  interest  him  in 
underwear,  he  wouldn't  complain  of  their 

120 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

efforts  in  that  direction.  Retail  salesmen 
should  take  warning  that,  while  not  every 
man  in  so  difficult  to  interest  as  this  Boston 
man,  there  are,  nevertheless,  a  great  many 
who  resent,  or  at  least  are  unmoved  by  the 
perfunctory  questions  which  most  retail 
salesmen  use  in  their  efforts  to  stimulate  ad- 
ditional purchases. 

As  to  hats  and  the  time-worn  assertion  of 
hat  salesmen  that,  "  You  have  to  get  used 
to  it,"  I  must  confess  that  one  does  have  to 
get  used  to  a  new  style  of  hat.  I  believe, 
however,  that  the  salesman  should  select  a 
shape  which  he  thinks  is  suited  to  his  cus- 
tomer and,  before  the  hat  is  tried  on,  say 
something  like  this:  "  Here  is  a  shape  that 
I  think  is  exactly  suited  to  your  profile. 
When  you  look  in  the  glass,  please  get  the 
side  and  rear  views  as  well  as  the  front  view." 

The  average  man  doesn't  see  much  of  his 
profile  or  back  and  usually  finds  them  rather 
interesting.  If  you  get  a  man  to  studying  his 

profile  and  the  back  of  his  head,  he  isn't  so 
121 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

likely  to  need  to  be  assured  that  he  will  have 
"  to  get  used  "  to  the  hat  you  are  trying  to 
sell  him.  He  gets  a  more  impersonal  and 
consequently  a  less  self-conscious  view  of 
himself  when  he  looks  at  his  profile  and  back. 
In  my  opinion,  every  hat  store  should  have 
three- section  mirrors  that  enable  a  customer 
to  see  himself  as  others  see  him. 


DO  YOU  WANT  TO  BE  RICH? 

THE  other  day  I  heard  two  men  discussing 
the  abilities  of  a  third  man.  Rather  pitilessly 
they  probed  his  weaknesses  and  ridiculed  his 
foibles.  Finally,  one  of  them  said :  "  Regard- 
less, though,  of  what  we  may  think  of  him, 
we've  got  to  admit  that  he's  getting  the 
money."  The  other  nodded  his  agreement 
and  both  appeared  to  accept  that  particular 
man's  success  in  "  getting  the  money  "  as 
irrefutable  evidence  of  his  ability. 

There  are  many  fields  of  human  endeavor 
in  which  one  can  be  eminently  successful 
without  acquiring  wealth,  but  there  is  no 
vocation  in  which  one  can  earn  large  sums 
of  money  without  being  counted  successful. 
Money  may  be  the  root  of  all  evil,  but  it  is 
also  a  token  of  success  that  passes  current 
among  all  civilized  races. 

Business  is  a  fascinating  game  in  which  the 
score  is  marked  up  in  dollars.  The  Yankee's 

123 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

so-called  lust  for  the  dollar  is  chiefly  a  sport- 
ing spirit  that  makes  him  intent  on  piling 
up  as  large  a  score  as  possible. 

Some  of  us,  who  haven't  much  money,  may 
pretend  that  we  are  poor  because  we  will 
not  stoop  to  the  practices  by  which  other 
men  grow  rich.  It  is  a  current  fallacy, 
fostered  by  soap-box  orators,  yellow  journal- 
ists and  political  demagogues  that  money- 
making  thrives  in  crookedness.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  crooked  business  man  is  usu- 
ally a  poor  player  of  the  business  game  who 
can't  win  without  breaking  the  rules.  To 
want  to  make  money  is  honorable,  and  the 
best  methods  of  making  money  are  honorable 
methods. 

The  head  of  a  large  wholesale  dry-goods 
house  in  Chicago  once  expressed  to  me  the 
opinion  that  an  employee's  ability  to  make 
money  for  himself  in  legitimate  ways,  with- 
out neglecting  the  interests  of  his  employer, 
constitutes  one  of  the  most  reliable  indica- 
tions of  his  executive  ability.  The  Chicago 

124 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

man  said,  "  If  an  employee  hasn't  made 
money  for  himself,  we  like  to  know  why.  If 
he  has  neglected  obvious  opportunities  to 
make  money  legitimately,  we  feel  that  he  is 
not  the  type  of  man  who  should  be  placed 
in  a  responsible  position  in  our  organization." 

Let  us  all  admit  that  we  want  to  make 
money.  Why  should  we  deny  it?  We  want 
to  make  money  and  we  desire  to  make  it  hon- 
orably, because  most  of  us  are  honorable,  but 
even  if  we  were  not,  the  fact  remains  that 
honorable  methods  are  more  likely  to  be  suc- 
cessful than  dishonorable  methods. 

How  are  we  to  find  out  how  to  make 
money?  The  most  obvious  way  is  to  ques- 
tion men  who  have  gained  riches  through 
their  own  efforts.  That  seems  very  simple, 
but  really  isn't.  I  have  asked  numerous  rich 
men  how  they  achieved  financial  success  and 
they  were  ready  enough  with  their  answers, 
but,  for  the  most  part,  the  answers  they  gave 
left  me  practically  no  wiser  than  I  was 
before. 

125 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

In  a  certain  mid-western  city  there  is  a  mil- 
lionaire manufacturer  whose  long  and  hon- 
orable career,  if  related  in  the  proper  way, 
would  be  an  invaluable  guide  to  you  and  me, 
but  I  can't  get  him  to  tell  us  what  we  need  to 
know,  if  we  are  intelligently  to  emulate  his 
example.  He  was  willing  to  furnish  informa- 
tion, in  fact,  did  give  me  some  five  thousand 
words  of  it,  such  for  example  as  the  assertion 
that  his  success  is  based  "  on  fidelity,  fairness 
and  industry,"  and  the  statement  that  "  he 
is  a  total  abstainer  from  drinking  and  smok- 
ing," but  when  I  tried  to  obtain  a  few  details 
that  you  and  I  could  use  in  making  million- 
aires of  ourselves,  he  grew  restive  and  said 
he  preferred  to  have  me  write  nothing  at  all 
about  his  career.  I  feel  that  I  haven't,  but 
I  know  that  I  should  like  to,  as  he  is  a  fine 
old  gentleman,  who  hasn't  a  thing  in  the 
world  to  conceal  although,  unfortunately  for 
us,  he  does  have  his  own  ideas  of  what  the 
world  needs  to  know  about  himself. 

However,  there  are  some  successful  men, 

126 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

who  are  human  enough  and  practical  enough 
and  sufficiently  free  from  self-consciousness 
to  be  willing  to  give  out  a  little  genuine  "  in- 
side information."  One  of  these  is  a  man 
who  used  to  drive  a  horse  car  in  St.  Louis. 
His  name  is  Festus  J.  Wade.  The  Festus 
was  fastened  upon  him  in  Limerick,  Ireland, 
where  he  was  born,  but  if  I  were  to  call  him 
an  Irishman  I  expect  he  would  sue  me  for 
libel.  He's  proud  of  being  born  in  Erin,  but 
he's  prouder  still  of  being  an  American. 

He  has  given  his  eighteen-year-old  son  to 
the  service,  and  he  is  giving  all  of  his  own 
time  to  the  nation.  Also,  he  recently  gave  a 
tremendous  "  bawling  out "  to  such  of  the 
Irish  born  as  appear  to  think  they  can  fight 
Germany  and  Great  Britain  at  the  same 
time.  Some  one  told  him  that  he  would  lose 
the  bank  deposits  of  those  who  do  not  agree 
with  his  views,  and  he  replied,  "  I  don't  want 
any  disloyal  depositors." 

But  how  I  run  on.  What  has  all  of  that  to 
do  with  the  methods  that  F.  J.  Wade  used 

127 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

in  making  himself  a  millionaire?  Nothing  at 
all,  unless  it  throws  a  little  light  on  the  char- 
acter of  this  level-eyed,  firm- jawed  Irish- 
American  who,  to  tell  the  truth,  has  rather 
captivated  my  fancy. 

Wade  was  brought  to  America  and  St. 
Louis  during  his  infancy.  He  got  an  in- 
different sort  of  common  school  education — 
the  same  sort  that  many  a  modern  street-car 
motorman  now  has.  I  forgot  to  find  out  how 
long  he  attended  school,  but  he  was  only  a 
kid  when  he  went  to  work — an  active  and 
ambitious  Irish  kid.  He  got  a  job  finally  as 
a  street-car  driver  and  patiently  piloted  the 
raw-boned,  shuffle-gaited  horses,  which  forty 
years  ago  were  the  dynamos  of  the  St.  Louis 
traction  system. 

He  aspired  to  be  something  else.  Perhaps 
his  aspirations  had  not  taken  very  definite 
shape,  but  he  knew  at  least  that  he  wanted 
to  be  something  different  than  a  street-car 
driver.  The  idea  of  being  a  clerk  and  hav- 
ing clean  hands  and  sitting  at  a  desk  seems 

128 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

rather  to  have  appealed  to  him,  but  there 
were  not  many  opportunities  for  an  unedu- 
cated Irish  boy  to  become  a  clerk.  Finally, 
however,  he  got  the  coveted  chance.  Back 
in  seventy-nine,  when  Mr.  Wade  was  twenty 
years  old,  the  "  St.  Louis  Fair  "  was  an  in- 
stitution of  international  renown.  The  St. 
Louis  Fair  Association  needed  clerks  from 
time  to  time,  and  perhaps,  as  is  somtimes 
the  case  With  semi-public  organizations,  was 
not  over  particular  as  to  their  fitness,  so  long 
as  their  employment  obliged  "  the  right  peo- 
ple." I  don't  know  that  young  Wade  had 
to  use  "  a  pull  "  to  land  a  clerkship  with  the 
fair  association,  but  at  any  rate,  he  obtained 
a  clerical  position  for  which  he  candidly  ad- 
mits he  was  utterly  unfit.  Up  to  this  point 
I  can't  see  that  Festus  J.  Wade  was  greatly 
different  from  thousands  of  other  young 
working  men  who  would  like  to  obtain  easier 
and  pleasanter  employment.  However,  hav- 
ing finally  landed  a  "  soft "  and  "  clean  " 
job,  he  manifested  immediately  a  disposition 

9  129 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

to  give  his  employers  their  money's  worth. 
He  recognized  that  lack  of  education  was 
his  principal  handicap  and  enrolled  in  a  night 
school,  where  for  three  laborious  years  he 
thirstily  drank  in  at  night  the  knowledge  that 
his  day  work  demanded.  At  the  end  of  three 
years,  when  Wade  was  twenty-three  years 
old,  The  Fair  Association  made  him  its  secre- 
tary. The  St.  Louis  Fair  of  those  days  was 
a  more  ambitious  kind  of  exposition  than  the . 
ordinary  State  Fair  of  to-day.  Its  various 
departments  covered  almost  every  conceiv- 
able line  of  human  activity  and  young  Wade 
found  that  he  needed  to  be  a  walking 
encyclopedia. 

By  now  he  had  outgrown  the  night  school, 
but  he  had  not  escaped)  the  necessity  for 
study.  Night  after  night  he  pored  over  ref- 
erence works  and  consulted  the  authorities 
which  they  indicated.  Gradually,  his  un- 
trained mind  became  a  nicely  adjusted  and 
accurate  thinking  machine.  Wade  acquired 
the  habit  of  thinking  into  the  future.  Lack 

130 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

of  foresight  results  principally  from  mental 
laziness.  A  man  who  has  an  active  mind  and 
orderly  processes  of  thought  is  almost  cer- 
tain to  possess  foresight.  If  you  train  your 
mind  and  use  it  you  will  inevitably  employ  it 
to  some  extent  in  planning  your  own  future. 
Wade's  observations  and  reflections  enabled 
him  to  picture  a  time  when  there  would  be  no 
St.  Louis  Fair,  and  he  determined  to  get  into 
some  other  kind  of  business  before  that  time 
came.  Accordingly,  he  obtained  a  position 
as  secretary  of  a  bank-note  and  lithograph- 
ing company.  The  position  was  a  good  one 
— dignified  and  well  paid.  In  seven  years 
he  had  progressed  from  the  front  platform 
of  a  St.  Louis  horse  car  to  a  leather  uphol- 
stered swivel  chair  in  the  executive  offices  of 
a  nationally  known  corporation.  Most  of  us 
would  have  been  satisfied  with  that  rate  of 
progressL  We  would  have  stuck  to  such 
a  snug  berth  and  ultimately  we  should  have 
had  our  pretty  suburban  house,  our  fifteen 
hundred  dollar  motor  car  and  our  golf  club 

131 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

membership.  But  this  young  Irish- Amer- 
ican still  retained  the  disquieting  habit  of 
thinking  ahead  and  he  couldn't  see  a  satis- 
factory future  for  himself  as  a  salaried  man. 
He  wanted  to  have  a  business  of  his  own. 
What  business  should  it  be?  It  must  not 
require  much  capital  and  it  must  be  some- 
thing that  he  understood.  He  knew  more 
about  St.  Louis  than  he  did  about  any  other 
subject  and  the  real  estate  business  required 
less  operating  capital  than  almost  any  other 
business.  It  seemed  logical  for  him  to  be- 
come a  promoter  of  St.  Louis  real  estate. 
He  decided  to  make  the  venture,  but  he  was 
conscious  of  his  own  limitations.  Wade 
wanted  a  couple  of  live  wire  associates,  each 
of  whom  could  contribute  a  needed  element 
to  the  success  of  the  real  estate  firm  which 
he  proposed  to  organize.  At  that  time  there 
were  two  men  in  St.  Louis,  Hammett  and 
Anderson  by  name,  who  were  leading  a  more 
or  less  precarious  existence  as  real  estate 
agents  and  promoters.  Each  had  a  separate 

132 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

office  and  operated  independently  of  the 
other,  but  between  them  they  possessed  cer- 
tain qualifications  that  Wade  believed  were 
needed  in  his  proposed  real  estate  agency. 
He  persuaded  them  to  close  their  offices, 
liquidate  their  respective  businesses  and  join 
forces  with  him.  The  liquidation  of  their 
affairs  was  not  a  very  complicated  pro- 
cedure, as  their  combined  net  worth  proved 
to  be  only  two  dollars  and  thirty  cents,  which 
was  their  contribution  to  the  working  capital 
of  the  real  estate  firm  of  Hammett,  Ander- 
son and  Wade,  that  in  less  than  ten  years 
became  the  largest  and  most  successful  firm 
of  its  kind  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis. 

Trust  companies,  like  Hebrews,  have  a 
habit  of  going  into  things  that  look  profit- 
able. The  trust  companies  of  St.  Louis  be- 
gan to  stir  uneasily  and  cast  envious  glances 
at  Wade's  real  estate  business.  Finally,  one 
of  them  decided  to  swallow  Mr.  Wade  by 
making  him  a  vice  president.  The  directors 
offered  him  the  position.  Wade  gave  them 

133 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

an  immediate  answer.  He  had  irrevocably 
decided  that  he  was  always  going  to  be  his 
own  boss.  "  I  can't  take  the  job,"  he  said, 
"  for  some  day  I'm  going  to  have  a  big  trust 
company  of  my  own." 

At  the  time  it  was  made  this  statement 
seemed  a  somewhat  rash  one,  but  Wade  con- 
tended that  it  was  just  as  easy  for  a  real 
estate  dealer  to  become  a  trust  company  as 
for  a  trust  company  to  become  a  real  estate 
dealer.  Here  again  he  had  been  thinking 
into  the  future.  He  had  seen  that  sooner 
or  later  he  would  have  to  organize  a  bank  and 
he  had  already  made  a  list  of  the  men  he 
wanted  as  stockholders  and  directors.  He 
wanted  this  man  for  one  reason  and  that  man 
for  another.  He  got  them  all  and  in  1899, 
when  he  was  forty  years  of  age,  organized 
The  Mercantile  Trust  Company,  a  banking 
institution  which  to-day  has  95,000  accounts 
on  its  books,  employs  237  people  and  occu- 
pies the  largest  building  in  the  United  States 
devoted  exclusively  to  banking. 

134 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

How  did  he  do  it?  If  you  don't  already 
know,  there  isn't  much  use  of  my  trying  to 
tell  you.  This  seems  obvious : 

First.  He  studied  his  work. 

Second.  He  learned  to  think. 

Third.  He  acquired  the  habit  of  continu- 
ally thinking  into  the  future — and  acting 
accordingly. 

Fourth.  He  determined  to  be  his  own 
boss  and  stuck  to  that  determination. 

Fifth.  He  surrounded  himself  with  men 
who  supplied  qualities  in  which  he  believed 
himself  to  be  deficient. 

Do  I  need  to  say  that  he  was  honest,  in- 
dustrious and  temperate?  That  much  may 
be  safely  assumed,  I  think.  Few  men  suc- 
ceed without  those  qualities. 


WHY  EDISON  HAS  SUCCEEDED 

I  WONDER  how  many  of  you  have  the  same 
mistaken  impression  of  Thomas  A.  Edison 
that  I  entertained  some  eight  years  ago. 

I  had  given  no  great  amount  of  thought 
to  the  subject,  but  I  pictured  Mr.  Edison  as 
an  eccentric  genius,  working,  perhaps,  on  a 
princely  salary  and  ostensibly  a  free  agent 
in  his  private  laboratories,  but  nevertheless 
guided  and  controlled  by  some  shrewd  busi- 
ness man  who  remained  discreetly  in  the 
background. 

Eight  years  ago,  in  the  capacity  of  a  sup- 
posed expert  at  sales  promotion  work,  which 
distinction  I  now  disclaim,  I  entered  into  cor- 
respondence with  the  president  of  the  several 
corporations  that  manufactured  and  distrib- 
uted the  various  products  of  the  Edison  Lab- 
oratories. Him  I  imagined  to  be  the  power 
behind  the  throne,  the  man  who  had  capital- 
ized Mr.  Edison.  I  lunched  with  this  gen- 

136 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

tleman  in  New  York  one  day,  and  a  few  days 
later  was  invited  to  accompany  him  to  the 
Edison  Laboratories  for  the  purpose  of 
meeting  Mr.  Edison. 

I  shall  never  forget  that  first  meeting.  I 
was  led  into  the  large  library  which  is  Mr. 
Edison's  office.  This  library  is  located  in  his 
private  laboratory.  It  contains  perhaps  ten 
thousand  volumes,  mostly  on  scientific  sub- 
jects, and  I  am  sure  it  is  quite  correct  to  say 
that  Mr.  Edison  doesn't  believe  a  single  state- 
ment or  formula  in  any  of  these  books,  unless 
he  has  personally  proved  its  truth.  Refer- 
ence books  mean  to  him  merely  a  starting 
point  for  his  own  research  work.  He  always 
forges  far  ahead  of  the  most  advanced  trea- 
tises. To  Edison,  that  which  has  been  written 
in  a  book  is  elementary,  no  matter  by  whom 
it  was  written,  nor  how  far  it  surpasses 
all  previous  knowledge.  When  he  has  occa- 
sion to  consult  a  book  of  reference  he  first 
tests  the  truth  of  its  contents  and  then  begins 
to  explore  beyond  it.  That  is  one  reason 

137 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

why  Edison  is  Edison.  However,  I  have 
gone  ahead  of  my  story. 

There  were  two  galleries  of  books  ar- 
ranged in  numerous  alcoves  that  debouched 
into  a  lofty  open  space.  Nearly  in  the  cen- 
ter of  this  open  space  was  a  roll-top  desk. 
Behind  the  desk  sat  Mr.  Edison.  He  is  not 
often  there,  but  he  was  there  on  this  par- 
ticular morning. 

As  he  rose  to  acknowledge  my  introduc- 
tion to  him,  I  instantly  compared  him  to  a 
lion ;  an  amiable  and  benevolent  sort  of  a  lion, 
perhaps,  but  a  lion  nevertheless.  Instinc- 
tively I  knew  that  Edison  was  not  a  figure- 
head; also  I  knew  that  my  employment  by 
his  companies  depended  entirely  on  his  opin- 
ion of  me. 

He  smiled  and  drew  me  into  a  chair  by 
his  side.  He  did  not  do  this  by  words,  not 
even  by  a  gesture;  he  merely  conveyed  to 
me  in  some  way  which  I  cannot  explain  that 
he  expected  me  to  seat  myself  near  him  and 
speak  to  him  briefly  and  distinctly.  As  you 

138 


MR.  EDISON  IN  HIS  STUDY 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

probably  know,  Mr.  Edison  is  quite  deaf, 
which  fact  he  counts  a  great  blessing,  as  it 
spares  him  from  long  conversations. 

I  was  unprepared  to  say  anything.  Mr. 
Edison  smiled  quizzically  and  spoke  first: 
"  I  understand  that  you're  the  whole  thing 
with  So  and  So,"  a  firm  for  which  I  had  been 
doing  some  sales  promotion  work. 

Truthfulness,  and  perhaps  a  trifle  of  per- 
versity and  possibly  the  merest  pinch  of 
modesty,  but  chiefly  truthfulness,  prompted 
me  to  reply:  "  No,  I'm  not  the  whole  thing, 
Mr.  Edison;  I'm  merely  a  cog  wheel  in  the 
machine." 

He  smiled  approval  and  asked  a  few  more 
questions.  The  president  of  his  companies 
explained  that  I  was  unwilling  to  sign  a 
contract  for  a  given  term  of  employment. 

Mr.  Edison  nodded,  and  with  a  princely 
disregard  for  my  presence  replied:  "He's 
got  the  right  idea.  If  he  makes  good,  he 
doesn't  need  a  contract;  if  he  doesn't  make 
good  he  won't  want  to  stay.  Go  ahead." 

139 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

The  interview  ended  there  and  I  became 
an  employee  of  Thomas  A.  Edison.  At  the 
time  I  thought  he  had  reached  a  rather  hasty 
decision.  Later  I  learned  that,  previous  to 
our  interview,  he  had  studied  my  record  as 
only  Edison  can  study  data  and,  further- 
more, had  personally  instituted,  through  an 
agency  of  his  own,  a  private  investigation  of 
my  character,  habits  and  ability.  My  inter- 
view with  him  that  morning  was  merely  a 
"  once-over  "  inspection.  I  did  not  know  it 
at  the  time,  but  I  sustained  on  that  occasion 
a  scrutiny  as  searching  as  the  Paris  police 
are  reputed  to  give  to  persons  in  whom  they 
have  a  professional  interest. 

No  one  knows  or  probably  ever  will  know 
exactly  what  standards  of  judgment  Mr. 
Edison  employs  in  forming  his  preliminary 
judgment  of  a  man.  There  are  treatises  on 
the  subject  of  character  reading,  but  Edison 
would  scorn  to  adopt  the  rules  expounded  in 
any  of  them.  Whatever  rules  he  uses  are 
drawn  from  his  own  experience.  Although 

140 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

partially  deaf,  Mr.  Edison  has  not  cultivated 
the  faculty  of  lip  reading.  However,  he  is 
an  expert  reader  of  human  faces.  Very  pos- 
sibly he  long  ago  decided  that  it  is  less  im- 
portant to  read  a  man's  words  than  to  divine 
the  intent  behind  them.  He  is  a  close  ob- 
server of  men's  eyes.  Also,  he  appears  to 
entertain  a  collateral  interest  in  their  ears, 
chins,  foreheads  and  heads,  as  well. 

Thomas  A.  Edison's  activities  have 
brought  him  in  contact  with  many  men  in 
various  walks  of  life.  He  has  sat  at  count- 
less conferences,  deaf  and  indifferent  to  the 
conversational  camouflage  which  most  men 
use  to  mask  their  motives,  and  has  studied 
faces,  cataloging  each  type,  I  think,  and 
thus  arrived  at  the  standards  of  judgment 
which  he  now  uses.  This  is  merely  my  opin- 
ion. Perhaps  Mr.  Edison  would  not  admit 
that  his  opinions  of  men  are  based  on  any 
such  classification  of  his  observations.  Per- 
haps he  is  not  even  conscious  of  having  made 
observations  of  this  kind;  but  if  you  will  cul- 

141 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

tivate  reticence,  study  the  faces  of  all  the  men 
you  meet,  and  classify  them  by  types  in  the 
light  of  their  subsequent  acts,  I  am  pretty 
sure  that  you  will  ultimately  acquire  the 
habit  of  forming  your  preliminary  estimate 
of  a  man  very  much  as  Mr.  Edison  gains  his 
first  impressions. 

Edison  is  inclined  to  be  incredulous,  and 
is  invariably  an  indefatigable  investigator 
when  he  considers  a  matter  to  be  of  sufficient 
importance  to  deserve  investigation.  What 
I  tell  him  about  you,  or  you  tell  him  about 
me,  he  accepts  as  he  does  the  text  of  a  scien- 
tific book.  He  considers  it  solely  as  a  point 
at  which  to  begin  the  observations  or  investi- 
gations on  which  his  own  opinion  will  finally 
be  based.  I  have  heard  men  say  that  Mr. 
Edison's  mind  had  been  poisoned  against 
them.  It  would  be  a  practical  impossibility 
to  poison  Edison's  mind  against  anyone. 
His  habits  of  thought  prevent  any  such 
result. 

Mr.  Edison  is  not  vindictive;  on  the  con- 

142 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

trary,  he  is  magnanimous  to  the  last  degree. 
Nevertheless,  he  has  the  kind  of  memory 
ascribed  to  an  elephant.  You  have  not  really 
known  Edison  until  he  has  "  bawled  you 
out."  I  am  a  hot-tempered  man.  For  many 
years  I  have  studiously  tried  to  cultivate  a 
more  placid  temper.  Theoretically  I  have 
succeeded,  but  up  to  date  Mr.  Edison  is  the 
only  man  in  the  world  who  can  bawl  me  out 
and  get  away  with  it.  He  hasn't  done  it  for 
several  years,  but  he  may  to-morrow,  and  if 
he  does  I  expect  it  will  benefit  me.  One  day 
he  summoned  me  to  his  library  and  asked 
me  to  explain  something  with  which  I  had 
absolutely  no  connection.  I  started  to  alibi 
myself.  His  eyes  flashed  with  scorn.  My 
alibi  was  unimpeachable,  but  the  point  was 
that  I  had  no  right  to  have  an  alibi.  I  was 
in  the  position  of  a  policeman  who  had  per- 
mitted a  crime  to  be  committed  without 
protest  merely  because  the  scene  of  its  perpe- 
tration was  beyond  his  beat.  Mr.  Edison 
gave  me  the  worst  tongue-lashing  I  have 

143 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

ever  received.  It  was  an  exact  chronology 
of  all  the  stupid  and  ineffective  things  I  had 
done  from  the  first  day  I  entered  his  employ, 
but  more  particularly  it  was  a  recital  of  the 
things  I  had  not  done  that  I  might  have  done. 
His  arraignment  of  me  was  not  altogether 
just;  however,  it  was  extremely  beneficial. 
He  punctured  my  self-complacency  without 
impairing  my  self-confidence.  That  "  bawl- 
out  "  was  worth  a  great  deal  to  me,  and  I  am 
sure  it  was  worth  more  to  Mr.  Edison.  He 
may  have  been,  and  probably  was,  irritated 
with  me,  but  I  believe  his  outburst  was  not 
primarily  a  show  of  temper.  I  think  it  was 
chiefly  a  purposeful  test  of  my  gameness. 

Edison  is  the  gamest  man  I  ever  knew, 
and  I  don't  think  he  has  much  use  for  a  man 
who  isn't  game.  He  is  also  the  most  scru- 
pulously honorable  man  I  ever  knew,  and 
I'm  sure  he  hasn't  much  use  for  a  man  who 
isn't  honorable. 

Mr.  Edison  appears  to  be  a  believer  in  the 
homely  adage  that  if  you  "  give  a  calf  enough 

144 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

rope,  it  will  hang  itself,"  and  he  sometimes 
applies  this  theory  to  his  dealings  with  em- 
ployees. He  likes  active  and  ambitious  men, 
and  not  infrequently  is  willing  to  experiment 
daringly  with  such  a  man  for  the  purpose 
of  determining  that  man's  proper  level  in 
the  Edison  organization.  When  an  experi- 
ment of  this  sort  develops  a  man  of  unim- 
peachable ability  and  integrity,  Mr.  Edison  is 
as  much  pleased  as  he  would  be  at  the  success- 
ful result  of  an  important  laboratory  experi- 
ment. He  is  careful,  however,  not  to  give 
his  entire  confidence  to  any  man  in  his  or- 
ganization until  such  man  has,  in  his  opinion, 
been  thoroughly  tried  and  proved.  It  is  fre- 
quently rather  difficult  to  tell  when  Edison 
has  decided  to  place  implicit  confidence  in  a 
given  employee.  Sometimes,  although  he 
appears  to  have  extended  his  entire  confidence 
to  this  man  or  that  man,  it  subsequently 
develops  that  he  had  held  continuously, 
in  some  form  or  other,  what  gamblers 
would  call  "  an  ace  in  the  hole."  In  the  or- 

10  145 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

ganization  of  his  associates  he  pursues  a 
policy  that  is  probably  understood  fully  by 
no  one  except  his  son  Charles. 

In  respect  of  men  employed  in  certain 
kinds  of  work  Mr.  Edison  has  a  habit  of 
weighing  the  good  against  the  bad,  and  if 
the  good  outweighs  the  bad,  materially,  he  is 
occasionally  quite  lenient  toward  an  em- 
ployee's bad  qualities,  provided  always  that 
such  employee  occupies  a  position  in  which 
the  evil  results  of  his  bad  qualities  can  be 
guarded  against  effectually.  Probably  no 
one  is  more  fully  conscious  than  Mr.  Edison 
of  the  evil  effects  of  whisky  on  both  brain 
and  body,  yet  I  once  heard  him  say:  "  There 
are  same  booze  fighters  who  are  brilliant 
men.  If  I  know  a  man  is  a  booze  fighter  I 
can  handle  him.  I  don't  like  boozers,  but  in 
the  past  I  have  had  a  few  men  of  that  kind 
who  could  get  results.  Of  course,  you  must 
be  careful  about  the  work  you  give  them,  but 
once  in  a  while  you  will  find  a  booze  fighter 
who  is  a  good  man — while  he  lasts." 

146 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

Mr.  Edison  appears  to  have  a  method  of 
his  own  for  determining  whether  an  associate 
over  indulges  in  strong  drink.  Several  years 
ago  he  remarked  to  an  employee  who,  to  say 
the  least,  was  not  a  heavy  drinker,  "  Blank, 
you're  drinking  too  much ;  better  cut  it  out 
before  it  kills  you." 

Blank  protested.  "Why,  Mr.  Edison," 
he  said,  "  I  drink  very  little.  I  don't  drink 
anywhere  near  as  much  as  that  man  you  told 
me  about  once." 

"  What  man  was  that?  "  Edison  inquired. 

"Why,  that  man  who  used  to  take  five 
drinks  of  whisky  every  day  and  lived  to  be 
ninety  years  old." 

Mr.  Edison  quickly  replied:  "Well,  how 
do  you  know  whisky  didn't  finally  kill  him? 
You'd  better  cut  out  those  cocktails  and 
high-balls.  Take  my  advice — you  never  were 
meant  to  take  any  drinks." 

I  have  heard  it  said  that  Mr.  Edison 
doesn't  like  a  fat  man  as  an  employee  or 
business  associate.  It  is  true  that  he  hasn't 

147 

• 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

many  fat  men  around  him;  but  it  would  be 
difficult  to  keep  up  with  Edison  and  remain 
fat.  I  am  sure  that  he  has  never  expressed 
a  prejudice  against  fat  men.  He  might  not 
be  favorably  impressed  by  a  slow  and  pon- 
derous fat  man,  but  I  feel  confident  that  an 
active  and  live  wire  type  of  fat  man  would 
not  be  disqualified  on  the  ground  of  embon- 
point alone.  If  Mr.  Edison  seems  to  mani- 
fest a  preference  for  lean  men  it  is  because 
they  usually  have  a  greater  capacity  for  and 
a  greater  tendency  toward  physical  activity. 
He  appears  to  regard  physical  activity  as  a 
sort  of  precursor  of  mental  activity. 

Mr.  Edison  believes  in  attacking  a  prob- 
lem from  all  sides.  He  is  the  only  man  I 
have  ever  known  who  is  capable  of  reason- 
ing— and  almost  invariably  does  reason — 
both  inductively  and  deductively  concerning 
any  subject  that  engages  his  serious  atten- 
tion. He  abhors  what  some  people  call 
"  snap  judgment."  I  think  he  regards  intu- 
ition as  merely  another  name  for  mental  lazi- 

148 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

ness.  He  not  only  believes  there  are  two 
sides  to  every  question,  but  usually  expects 
to  find  half  a  dozen.  To  ascertain  those  half 
dozen  different  sides  of  a  given  question,  and 
resolve  them  into  an  answer  which  is  respon- 
sive to  every  phase  of  the  question,  is  the  only 
solution  with  which  he  is  content.  That  is 
one  reason  why  Edison  has  no  close  rival  in 
the  field  of  invention.  It  is  also  a  reason 
why  his  judgment  on  a  business  problem  is 
usually  very  sound.  He  likes  men  who  will 
dig  down  to  the  roots  of  every  problem  they 
encounter.  He  has  small  patience  with  the 
man  who  is  content  to  look  superficially  at  a 
problem  and  theorize  concerning  the  num- 
ber and  character  of  its  roots.  That  is  why 
he  likes  industrious  men.  You  perhaps  have 
a  10  per  cent,  greater  brain  equipment  than 
I,  but  if  I  work  twelve  hours  a  day  and  you 
work  only  eight,  Edison  would  prefer  me  to 
you.  He  recognizes,  of  course,  that  some 
men  are  smarter  than  others,  but  in  his  esti- 
mation there  is  no  degree  of  ability  that  will 

149 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

outweigh  laziness  or  lack  of  application. 
The  nonchalant  genius  of  business  fiction 
has  no  place  in  the  Edison  organization.  No 
man  can  last,  or  at  least  no  man  can  achieve 
importance  in  Mr.  Edison's  eyes,  unless  he 
is  a  tireless  worker. 

There  are  no  golf  players  in  the  Edison 
organization.  There  are  three  or  four  men 
who  play  occasionally,  but  there  isn't  a  man 
who  has  his  golf  regularly  in  the  approved 
manner.  There  isn't  a  case  of  golf  tan- 
not  even  nineteenth  hole  tan — in  the  entire 
organization.  I  don't  think  Mr.  Edison  has 
any  prejudice  against  golf.  I  doubt  if  he 
realizes  that  there  are  men  who  believe  golf 
is  essential  to  their  well-being  and  who 
imagine  they  are  clearing  their  brains  for 
the  big  things  of  to-morrow  when  they  steal 
away  to  the  country  club  from  the  duties  of 
to-day.  That  there  are  no  golfers  in  the 
Edison  organization  is  not  because  of  Mr. 
Edison's  antipathy  toward  golf  or  other  out- 
door sports,  but  merely  because  keeping  up 

150 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

with  Edison  doesn't  leave  any  time  for  that 
sort  of  thing. 

Mr.  Edison  loves  brevity.  He  believes 
that  the  more  you  know  about  a  subject  the 
more  briefly  and  definitely  you  can  express 
your  conclusions.  If  you  make  a  written 
recommendation  to  him,  he  likes  to  have  it 
on  a  single  sheet  of  paper.  He  prefers  a 
penciled  memorandum  to  one  that  has  been 
dictated.  Apparently  he  feels  that  you  are 
less  likely  to  indulge  in  needless  words  when 
you  write  with  a  pencil. 

If  Edison  is  called  upon  to  make  a  deci- 
sion in  a  business  matter,  he  demands  what 
he  calls  "  data,"  in  other  words,  all  of  the 
essential  facts  arranged  in  the  order  of  their 
importance  and  in  the  plainest  possible  form. 
Until  an  employee  has  developed  the  habit 
of  dissecting  all  important  business  prob- 
lems in  this  manner,  Mr.  Edison  has  ordi- 
narily small  confidence  in  such  employee's 
judgment.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  this 
is  one  of  the  important  tests  which  he  applies 

151 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

to  men  in  forming  his  final  opinion  of  their 
abilities. 

Edison  has  seemingly  an  unvarying  sys- 
tem of  dealing  with  new  employees.  He  fills 
them  with  the  feeling  that  tremendous  re- 
sponsibilities rest  upon  their  shoulders,  and 
for  a  time  thereafter  listens  indulgently  to 
their  reports  of  progress.  Probably  it  is  this 
habit  which  is  responsible  for  the  occasional 
bitter  assertion  by  an  old  employee  concern- 
ing a  new  one :  "  You'd  think  a  smart  man 
like  Mr.  Edison  would  be  able  to  see  through 
that  grandstander,  wouldn't  you?  " 

In  my  opinion,  Edison  is  always  able  to 
"  see  through  a  grandstander,"  but  he  real- 
izes that  a  "  grandstander  "  frequently  has 
abilities  which  partially  justify  the  self-praise 
in  which  "  grands tanders  "  are  prone  to  in- 
dulge. Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  most 
good  men  are  inclined  to  be  grandstand  play- 
ers in  some  way  or  other?  Perhaps  that  is 
the  reason  why  Mr.  Edison  is  sometimes  tol- 
erant of  "  grandstanders."  However,  he  has 

152 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

an  almost  uncanny  way  of  detecting  a  four- 
flusher.  Within  limitations,  he  will  tolerate 
"  grandstanders,"  but  he  is  utterly  antago- 
nistic to  "  four-flushers." 

The  man  who  thinks  he  can  fool  Thomas 
A.  Edison  is  usually  fooling  himself.  Mr. 
Edison  has  patience,  but  he  is  also  extraor- 
dinarily successful  in  appraising  an  em- 
ployee's limitations.  Although  he  has  a 
habit  of  forming  an  almost  instantaneous 
preliminary  estimate  of  men,  he  believes  that 
ordinarily  he  must  have  a  considerable  space 
of  time  for  observation  before  he  can  arrive 
at  a  final  judgment  of  a  man's  character  and 
ability.  Sometimes,  however,  he  does  not 
hesitate  to  express  a  final  opinion  after  his 
first  interview,  and  in  such  cases  I  have  never 
known  him  to  be  wrong. 

Several  years  ago  I  introduced  to  Mr.  Edi- 
son a  prominent  business  man  who  enjoyed 
a  very  high  reputation.  A  few  hours  later  Mr. 
Edison  said  to  me:  "  That  man  is  crooked; 
be  careful  in  your  dealings  with  him." 

153 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

All  of  my  life  I  have  studied  men  as  Mr. 
Edison  has  studied  acoustics,  chemistry,  elec- 
tricity, photography,  etc.,  and  I  am  frank  to 
confess  that  I  thought  I  knew  as  much  about 
men  as  Mr.  Edison  could  possibly  know.  In 
this  particular  case  I  did  not  believe  he  was 
correct;  nevertheless,  I  had  been  convinced 
by  careful  observation  that  Edison  is  seldom 
wholly  wrong  about  anything,  and  accord- 
ingly I  dealt  with  this  man  as  if  I  personally 
believed  him  to  be  dishonest.  It  is  fortunate 
that  I  did  so,  as  he  subsequently  proved  to  be 
wholly  untrustworthy. 

I  am  familiar  with  Mr.  Edison's  opinion 
of  a  number  of  different  men  whom  I  know 
quite  intimately,  and  I  believe  that  it  would 
be  difficult  to  formulate'  more  accurate  esti- 
mates of  those  men  than  are  embodied  in  his 
opinions  of  them. 

One  of  the  conclusions  which  a  thinking 
man  must  inevitably  form  about  Mr.  Edison, 
through  association  with  him,  is  that  he  never 
bases  a  conclusion  on  a  wrong  premise.  His 

154 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

conclusion  may  prove  to  be  wrong,  and  if 
so,  he  quickly  abandons  it,  but  I  have  never 
known  of  an  instance  where  he  started  with 
the  wrong  basic  thought.  He  is  perhaps 
over-logical;  I  rather  think  he  is  sometimes. 
He  has  a  way  of  driving  toward  an  objective 
with  no  regard  for  tradition,  custom,  preju- 
dice or  any  other  purely  human  factor. 

This  method  has  brought  results  in  his  lab- 
oratories that  will  not  be  fully  appreciated  by 
the  public  until  long  after  the  pages  on  which 
these  words  were  written  have  turned  to 
dust;  but  the  application  of  his  laboratory 
methods  to  the  commercial  aspects  of  his 
work  is  sometimes  rather  disconcerting  to  an 
ordinary  business  man  such  as  myself.  How- 
ever, I  must  confess  that  in  the  long  run  the 
business  policies  which  he  formulates  usually 
prove  to  be  sound.  I  should  possibly  not 
now  be  writing  by  the  soft  and  steady  illu- 
mination of  an  incandescent  lamp  if  Edison 
had  not  conceived  the  proper  method  of  mer- 
chandising electric  illumination  as  well  as 

155 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

the  best  method  of  producing  it.  Perhaps 
I  should  never  have  had  the  opportunity  to 
ride  in  a  trolley  car  or  subway  express  if 
Edison  had  not  comprehended  and  demon- 
strated the  possibilities  of  electric  transporta- 
tion. When  I  use  the  telephone  I  should 
perhaps  hear  more  frequently  those  irritating 
words,  "  Line's  busy,"  if  Edison,  in  the  early 
days  of  the  telephone,  had  not  insisted  that 
a  time  limit  be  placed  on  every  call,  and  thus 
created  the  custom  of  brief  speech  over  the 
telephone.  Strange  as  it  may  appear,  some 
of  his  associates  wanted  to  establish  a  flat 
charge  for  each  telephonic  conversation  to 
a  given  point,  irrespective  of  the  length  of 
the  conversation. 

Furthermore,  I  believe  Mr.  Edison  was 
the  first  to  lay  down  the  commercial  doctrine 
that  overhead  can  sometimes  be  profitably 
omitted  from  cost  calculations  in  figuring  on 
export  business.  About  forty  years  ago,  he 
said  to  a  group  of  conferees  who  sought  for- 
eign markets:  "  If  you  are  not  filled  up  with 

156 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

domestic  orders,  cut  out  your  overhead  when 
you  figure  on  foreign  business.  Use  ma- 
terial and  direct  labor  as  your  cost  basis ;  then 
add  your  profit.  If  you  can  increase  the  vol- 
ume of  your  sales  by  developing  foreign 
markets,  you  can  ultimately  reduce  your  do- 
mestic prices."  This  tersely  phrased  prin- 
ciple of  extending  foreign  trade  has  since 
been  widely  adopted  by  manufacturers,  al- 
though Mr.  Edison,  possibly  because  of 
sentimental  reasons,  has  rarely  practiced  it. 
In  the  pioneering  days  of  the  incandescent 
light  industry,  Edison  pointed  out  to  his 
associates  that  it  was  a  mistake,  from  the 
money-making  standpoint,  to  base  the 
charges  of  an  illuminating  company  on 
the  amount  of  current  supplied  to  the  user  of 
electric  light.  "  We  shall  make  improve- 
ments in  our  lamps,"  he  said.  "  Those  im- 
provements will  result  in  the  consumption 
of  less  current.  If  you  want  to  benefit  by  the 
improvements  that  we  make  in  the  lamps, 
you  should  charge  for  the  light,  not  for  the 

157 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

current."  Edison's  associates  preferred  the 
more  obvious  method  of  charging  for  the  cur- 
rent consumed,  and  he  did  not  urge  the  point. 
Very  probably  he  was  not  inclined  to  op- 
pose a  policy  which  he  believed  would  ulti- 
mately result  in  a  lower  cost  to  the  consumer. 

Events  have  since  demonstrated  that  Mr. 
Edison  was  correct.  The  improvements 
made  in  incandescent  lamps  have  brought 
about  a  lower  consumption  of  current  per 
candle-power  of  illumination,  and  the  direct 
benefit  of  these  improvements  has  accrued 
chiefly  to  the  consumer,  although  the  illu- 
minating companies  have  indirectly  benefited 
by  the  more  extensive  use  of  electricity  which 
resulted  from  the  lowered  cost  to  the 
consumer. 

There  are  two  Edisons:  One  is  the  Edison 
of  coldly  scientific  mind,  who  reasons  ruth- 
lessly and  relentlessly  to  a  conclusion  far  be- 
yond the  average  man's  foresight.  The  other 
is  an  Edison  vividly  human,  intensely  sym- 
pathetic, extremely  generous  and  incessantly 

158 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

active  in  the  interests  of  mankind.  Edison 
can  be  the  lion  that  he  resembles,  he  can  even 
be  unjust;  but  he  is  never  avaricious,  and 
he  is  unfailingly  generous. 

Some  time  ago  a  former  employee  of  Mr. 
Edison  said  to  me,  "  He  is  not,  never  was  and 
never  will  be  a  good  business  man."  That 
was  one  man's  opinion.  My  own  opinion  is 
quite  different.  If  Mr.  Edison  had  time  to 
make  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  facts, 
I  would  as  soon  have  his  advice  on  a  financial 
matter  as  Mr.  Morgan's,  and  I  would  accept 
his  judgment  on  a  retail  merchandising  prob- 
lem as  readily  as  Mr.  Wanamaker's,  or  his 
estimate  of  a  manufacturing  proposition 
with  as  much  confidence  as  Mr.  Schwab's. 

Such  is  my  judgment  of  Mr.  Edison's  ca- 
pacity as  a  business  man,  and  I  think  it  is  a 
judgment  entirely  uninfluenced  by  my  at- 
tachment to  and  admiration  for  Mr.  Edison. 
The  man  whom  I  have  quoted  to  the  effect 
that  Edison  is  not  a  good  business  man  dis- 
agreed with  Mr.  Edison  because  the  latter 

159 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

declined  to  be  guided  by  the  expediency  of 
the  moment  and  insisted  on  a  policy  that 
looked  to  the  future.  The  wisdom  of  Edi- 
son's decision  has  already  been  demonstrated 
by  large  economies,  although  it  did  result 
temporarily  in  the  inconvenience  which  Mr. 
Edison's  former  associate  had  prophesied  at 
the  time  of  their  disagreement. 

I  have  considered  various  instances  in 
which  Mr.  Edison  is  reputed  to  have  shown 
bad  business  judgment,  and  found  them, 
without  exception,  to  have  been  cases  where 
his  objects,  in  point  of  time,  lay  far  beyond 
the  vision  of  the  men  who  disagreed  with  him. 
Edison's  foresight  is  something  more  than 
that  of  the  ordinarily  far-sighted  man.  In 
business,  I  like  to  lay  my  plans  two  or  three 
years  ahead.  Mr.  Edison  believes  in  plan- 
ning twenty  years  ahead — not  merely  day- 
dreaming of  the  future,  but  actually  putting 
in  motion  to-day  a  force  that  is  calculated  to 
produce  a  given  result  ten  years,  or  twenty 
years,  hence.  Frequently  he  finds  it  impos- 

160 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

sible  to  get  a  man  who  has  the  necessary 
vision  to  work  with  him  successfully  on  a 
plan  that  has  its  point  of  culmination,  per- 
haps, ten  years  in  the  future.  Edison  re- 
quires a  degree  of  enthusiastic  enterprise 
which  cannot  be  simulated  by  anyone  who 
does  not  thoroughly  comprehend  and  fully 
agree  with  his  ideas.  More  than  once  he  has 
abandoned  a  cherished  plan  because  he  could 
not  find  a  man  of  the  right  caliber.  Not  long 
ago  Mr.  Edison  said  in  answer  to  my  objec- 
tions to  a  projected  enterprise:  "  Those  ob- 
stacles can  be  overcome,  if  you  can  find  the 
right  man;  that's  all  you  need  to  do — find 
the  man." 

Edison  has  probably  never  conceived  a 
project  that  could  not  be  carried  through  suc- 
cessfully if  his  lieutenants  were  capable  of 
grasping  all  of  his  ideas  and  acting  at  all 
times  in  harmony  with  them.  Mr.  Edison 
has  a  fault  not  uncommon  to  great  men, 
namely,  that  when  he  has  set  forth  the  essen- 
tials of  an  idea,  he  expects  his  associates  to 

11  161 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

comprehend  every  detail  and  latent  possibil- 
ity as  fully  as  he  himself  does.  They  are 
not  always  able  to  do  this,  and  when  they  are 
not  he  is  momentarily  inclined  to  underrate 
their  intelligence  as  much  as  he  previously 
overrated  it.  Experience  has  made  him 
chary  of  embarking  on  any  new  business 
enterprise  until  he  is  satisfied  that  he  has  the 
right  men  to  carry  it  to  a  successful  con- 
clusion, which  is  perhaps  partly  responsible 
for  the  occasional  assertion  one  hears  among 
his  associates  that  "  the  Old  Man  has  changed 
his  mind  again."  Mr.  Edison  sometimes 
agrees  to  do  a  thing  which  previously  he  may 
have  refused  to  do;  but  when  this  happens 
it  is  because  the  reason  for  his  previous  re- 
fusal has  been  removed.  He  had  been  wait- 
ing for  the  right  man  to  develop  or  the  right 
time  to  arrive,  or  some  other  important  factor 
to  be  determined.  He  is  sparing  of  words 
and  does  not  always  reveal  all  of  his  reasons 
for  a  decision.  I  have  never  known  Mr.  Edi- 
son to  do  a  right-about-face  without  some 

162 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

good  reason  entirely  consistent  with  his  for- 
mer attitude.  He  most  assuredly  is  not  a 
man  of  vacillating  policies.  I  have  known 
him  to  change  a  decision,  but  I  have  never 
known  him  to  change  a  fundamental  opin- 
ion, once  it  had  been  arrived  at  in  the  man- 
ner he  employs  to  reach  a  final  conclusion. 

Although  Mr.  Edison  plans  far  into  the 
future,  he  does  not  discount  the  future  in  the 
sense  of  counting  on  future  gains.  One  of 
his  favorite  business  maxims  is:  "  A  profit  is 
not  a  profit  until  it's  in  your  pocket."  If  he 
spends  to-day  a  hundred  thousands  dollars 
to  effect  a  result  to-morrow,  he  counts  that 
expenditure  as  a  part  of  to-day's  ex- 
penses. The  assets,  which  he  regards  as 
assets,  contain  no  futurities.  I  doubt  if  any- 
where there  is  a  sounder  business  concern 
than  Thomas  A.  Edison's  industries. 

I  have  stated  that  Mr.  Edison  attaches  a 
great  deal  of  importance  to  the  caliber  of  the 
men  who  surround  him.  Except  for  occa- 
sional moments  of  exasperation,  he  is  tol- 

163 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

erant  of  the  limitations  of  his  employees,  but, 
as  previously  noted,  is  slow  to  extend  his 
entire  confidence — or  unlimited  authority — 
to  anyone.  He  has  always  considered  that 
men  constitute  the  biggest  problem  in  his 
business.  In  recent  years  he  has  devoted  a 
great  deal  of  thought  to  the  personnel  of  his 
organization. 

Four  years  ago  his  son  Charles  came  into 
the  organization  at  the  munificent  salary  of 
twenty-five  dollars  per  week.  Mr.  Charles 
Edison  had  been  educated  at  the  Massachu- 
setts Institute  of  Technology,  then  had 
knocked  about  the  world  a  bit,  on  a  rather 
limited  allowance,  as  an  additional  part  of 
his  education,  and  finally  had  served  a  sort 
of  novitiate  in  various  positions  with  the  Bos- 
ton Edison  Company.  He  seemed  a  rather 
self-effacing  young  man.  Neither  he  nor 
anyone  else  knew  quite  what  his  father  in- 
tended to  do  with  him.  I  don't  think  Charles 
Edison,  himself,  fully  realized  that  he  was 
on  trial.  Various  tasks  were  assigned  to  him 

164 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

and  he  attacked  each  of  them  with  commend- 
able zeal.  Finally  he  was  given  a  desk  in  his 
father's  library,  but  took  no  part  in  the  coun- 
cils of  the  business.  Sometimes  he  sat  si- 
lently at  the  council  table.  If  he  had  opinions 
he  did  not  express  them. 

At  length  the  period  of  probation  was  com- 
pleted. Mr.  Edison  had  applied  to  his  own 
son  the  same  kind  of  test  he  would  apply  to 
any  other  person  who  entered  his  employ. 
Indeed,  I  am  rather  inclined  to  believe  that 
Charles  Edison  was  required  to  undergo  a 
more  severe  test  than  would  have  been  used 
with  a  stranger,  and  if  he  had  failed  to  sus- 
tain it  I  am  sure  he  would  have  been  rejected 
quite  as  quickly  as  any  other  person  who  had 
been  tried  and  found  wanting. 

Charles  Edison  is  to-day  the  chairman 
of  the  Board  of  Directors.  He  is  about 
thirty  years  of  age.  His  tastes  lie  in  the 
direction  of  business  with  literature  as  a  di- 
version. While  he  has  an  excellent  compre- 
hension of  manufacturing  and  is  a  good 

165 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

judge  of  the  utility  of  an  apparatus,  he  ap- 
pears to  have  no  aspirations  to  create  through 
invention. 

I  have  heard  experienced  business  men  say 
of  Charles  Edison  that  he  has  the  oldest 
business  head  of  any  man  of  his  age  whom 
they  know.  Certainly  I  know  of  no  one  of 
his  age  who  has  an  equally  old  head,  and  I 
find  myself  invariably  considering  his  opin- 
ions with  a  respect  which  I  am  quite  sure  I 
would  not  accord  to  those  of  any  other  man 
of  similar  age  among  my  acquaintances.  It 
is  impossible  to  be  associated  with  Thomas 
A.  Edison  and  fail  to  absorb  some  of  his 
methods  and  habits  of  thought.  This  is  done 
more  or  less  unconsciously,  as  he  detects 
sham  too  quickly  and  detests  it  too  thor- 
oughly to  encourage  any  intelligent  man  to 
imitate  him  consciously.  Charles  Edison  has 
undoubtedly  absorbed,  if  not  inherited,  a 
great  many  of  his  father's  mental  habits. 

Edison  has  with  him  a  number  of  men  who 
would  shine  as  figures  of  national  importance 

166 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

in  their  respective  lines  of  endeavor  if  their 
lights  were  not  largely  obscured  by  the 
greater  radiance  of  Mr.  Edison's  achieve- 
ments. Charles  Edison,  with  a  noteworthy 
capacity  for  organization,  has  carried  out  his 
father's  plans  in  such  a  way  that  the  research 
laboratories,  manufacturing  laboratories,  and 
the  various  business  departments  of  Mr.  Edi- 
son's industries  are  now  organized  on  a  basis 
that  employs  in  the  fullest  degree  the  abil- 
ities of  Edison's  most  capable  assistants. 
This  system  of  organization  was  put  to  a 
severe  test  in  February,  1917,  when  Mr.  Edi- 
son dedicated  all  of  his  time  to  the  United 
States  Government.  Continuously  since 
then  his  mind  has  been  almost  wholly  ab- 
sorbed by  his  work  for  the  Government. 
Nevertheless,  his  own  business  has  prospered, 
and  he  rarely  has  cause  for  unfavorable  com- 
ment when  in  his  spare  moments  he  scans  the 
reports  that  are  laid  before  him. 


WANTED— A  MAN 
WITH  EXECUTIVE  ABILITY 

TUKN  to  the  want  ad.  section  of  The 
Times  and  you  will  find  evidence  that  men 
of  executive  ability  are  not  scarce.  Under 
"  Situations  Wanted  "  you  will  observe  the 
advertisements  of  numerous  men  who  un- 
blushingly  lay  claim  to  a  high  quality  of  exec- 
utive capacity. 

In  hiring  men  I  have  frequently  asked  the 
question,  "  Do  you  feel  that  you  have  native 
executive  ability? "  I  do  not  recall  that  I 
ever  received  a  negative  answer.  Usually,  I 
also  inquire:  "  How  would  you  define  execu- 
tive ability?  "  Few  of  the  men  who  claim  to 
possess  it. seem  to  have  a  very  clear  notion 
of  what  executive,  ability  is.  Nor  have  I. 

I  know  a  man  who  has  acquired  a  consid- 
erable reputation  as  an  executive  because  of 
three  characteristics:  his  laconic  speech,  his 
practice  of  quickly  deciding  all  questions 

168 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

submitted  to  him,  and  his  unwavering  ad- 
herence to  his  first  impressions.  He  argues 
thus:  "  If  you  pitch  a  half  dollar  into  the  air 
a  thousand  times,  the  probabilities  are  that 
it  will  fall  heads  up  as  many  times  as  it  falls 
tails  up.  When  I  reach  a  decision,  I  don't 
mean  to  say  that  I'm  gfiessing,  but  suppose 
I  was,  wouldn't  I  be  able  to  guess  right  at 
least  half  the  time — and  if  you're  right  fifty 
per  cent,  of  the  time  in  business,  it's  a  high 
batting  average,  isn't  it?  " 

I  reminded  him  of  the  gambler's  maxim 
that  "  the  man  who  does  the?  guessing  takes 
ten  per  cent,  the  worst  of  it."  "  How  do  they 
figure  that?  "  he  demanded. 

"  Take,  as  an  example,  your  own  illustra- 
tion of  flipping  a  coin,"  I  attempted  to  ex- 
plain. "  If  you  invariably  selected  heads, 
you  could  scarcely  be  accused  of  guessing,  as 
it  is  probable,  in  view  of  the  law  of  averages, 
that  you  would  be  practically  even  with  your 
opponent  at  the  end  of  a  thousand  throws. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  your  choice  fluctuated 

169 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

between  heads  and  tails,  you  would  be  guess- 
ing and  you  would  assume  the  highly  eminent 
risk  of  encountering  a  succession  of  results, 
the  exact  opposite  of  your  guesses,  and  en- 
tailing upon  you  losses  which  it  would  be 
difficult  for  you  to  recoup  unless  your  pyra- 
mided your  wagers.  Events  that  are  left  to 
chance  have  no  sequence  which  human  fac- 
ulties can  anticipate,  and  it  is  the  theory  of 
professional  gamblers  that  the  man  who  at- 
tempts to  anticipate  them  is  at  a  material 
disadvantage." 

"  How  about  luck;  don't  luck  enter  into 
it? "  he  inquired. 

"  The  gambler  figures  that,  in  the  long 
run,  he  will  have  as  much  luck  as  the  man 
who  does  the  guessing." 

"I  see,"  my  friend  agreed.  "I  guess 
that's  right.  The  man  who  does  the  guessing 
takes  ten  per  cent,  the  worst  of  it.  I  suppose 
that's  why  Ike  Greenberg  always  wants  me 
to  say  whether  it's  heads  or  tails  when  we 
•match  for  lunch.  I'll  fool  him  to-day." 

170 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

"  But,"  he  continued,  "  admitting,  when 
I  decide  things  in  my  business,  that  I  guess 
right  only  forty  per  cent,  of  the  time,  isn't 
that  a  pretty  high  average — a  higher  average, 
in  fact,  than  most  business  men  get — and 
isn't  it  better  to  take  snap  judgment  and 
keep  things  moving,  even  if  you  are  right 
only  forty  per  cent,  of  the  time,  than  to  fid- 
dle around  and  get  everybody  all  balled  up 
and  still,  maybe,  not  be  right  more  than  forty 
per  cent,  of  the  time? " 

It  is  seldom  that  an  executive  will  make 
so  naive  a  disclosure  as  this  man  made,  but 
I  am  afraid  there  are  numerous  executives 
whose  methods  in  many  instances,  if  not 
habitually,  are  nearly  as  primitive  as  his. 
Very  probably  you  would  not  want  him  to 
manage  a  business  for  you,  but  quite  possibly 
you  are  already  a  stockholder  in  a  corpora- 
tion which  is  managed  by  the  same  type  of 
man. 

"  How  can  such  a  man  be  a  continuously 
successful  executive?  "  you  ask.  Under  cer- 

171 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

tain  conditions,  it  is  quite  possible.  First  of 
all,  his  fundamental  policy,  or  the  funda- 
mental policy  of  the  business  which  he  man- 
ages, must  be  sound.  If  he  formulated  the 
policy  himself,  he  may  have  hit  upon  it 
through  sheer  good  luck,  rather  than  by  the 
exercise  of  good  judgment,  but  that  does  not 
necessarily  affect  the  value  of.  the  policy. 

The  next  important  condition  to  his  suc- 
cess is  that  he  shall  adhere  strictly  to  the  fun- 
damental policy  which  he  has  established,  or 
which  has  been  established  for  him.  In  this 
connection  we  encounter  what  seems  a  para- 
dox. The  executive  who,  in  the  decision  of 
matters  presented  to  him  in  the  daily  routine 
of  his  business,  guesses,  or  "  acts  from  intu- 
ition," or  takes  "  snap  judgment,"  or  what- 
ever you  choose  to  call  it,  is,  on  the  average, 
a  little  more  likely  to  adhere  consistently  to 
the  basic  policy  of  his  company  than  the- 
man  who  makes  a  purely  intellectual  func- 
tion of  each  decision  which  he  renders. 

Why?    I  am  not  sure  that  I  know.    Per- 

172 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

haps  it  is  because  the  policies  of  a  man's  busi- 
ness become  so  deeply  rooted  in  his  mind 
that,  in  making  a  "  snap  judgment "  decision 
where  intelligence  is  largely  subordinated  to 
instinct,  he  acts  subconsciously  in  harmony 
with  fundamental  policies  and  ignores  con- 
siderations which,  with  a  more  careful  weigh- 
ing of  the  matter  in  hand,  might  influence 
him  toward  a  conclusion  at  variance  with  the 
established  policy  of  his  business. 

Do  I  make  my  meaning  clear,  I  wonder? 
My  thought  involves  one  of  the  distinctions 
between  instinct  and  intelligence.  Animals, 
acting  from  instinct  alone,  are  usually  con- 
sistent. Man,  when  guided  by  his  intelli- 
gence, is  likely  to  be  inconsistent,  but  such  of 
his  acts  as  are  prompted  chiefly  by  his  in- 
stincts usually  show  a  considerable  consis- 
tency, although  falling  far  short  of  the 
consistency  which  characterizes  the  conduct 
of  the  average  dog  or  cat.  Speaking  in  a 
very  broad  sense,  I  think  we  may  safely  say 
that  the  more  closely  a  man's  acts  are  iden- 

173 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

tified  with  his  instincts,  the  more  consistent 
his  actions  will  be. 

It  can  be  argued  that  one's  instincts  are 
a  heritage  from  one's  ancestors  and  that  a 
human  being  cannot  develop  within  himself 
instincts  of  sufficient  strength  to  exercise 
a  subconscious  influence  on  his  own  conduct ; 
this  despite  the  fact  that  the  conduct  of  his 
descendants,  through  the  agency  of  heredity, 
may  be  materially  affected  thereby.  I  do 
not  hold  with  that  view  and  my  disagree- 
ment is  based  on  my  observations  of  men  with 
whom  I  have  been  in  close  association,  and  I 
may  also  say,  to  some  extent,  upon  my  ob- 
servations of  myself. 

However,  if  I  have  erred,  it  is  in  the  choice 
of  names.  If  it  is  not  instinct  which  a  man 
has  developed  when  we  say  of  him  that  "  it 
has  become  second  nature  to  him  "  to  per- 
form certain  acts,  the  thing  nevertheless  so 
closely  resembles  instinct  that  convenience 
justifies  the  use  of  that  word  in  describ- 
ing it. 

174 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

A  third  essential  to  the  success  of  an  ex- 
ecutive who  "  guesses  "  (and  it  is  important 
to  the  success  of  every  type  of  executive)  is 
that,  having  made  a  decision,  he  must  not 
vacillate.  The  guesser  rarely  does  vacillate. 
Strangely  enough,  the  man  who  jumps  at  a 
conclusion  is  likely  to  persist  in  it  more  dog- 
gedly than  the  man  who  has  formulated  his 
opinion  by  exhaustive  investigation  and  care- 
ful reasoning. 

The  fourth  necessary  element  in  the  suc- 
cess of  a  "  guessing  "  executive  is  that  he 
shall  be  surrounded  by  capable  subordinates, 
who  have  confidence  in  what  he  calls  his 
judgment  and  who  carry  out  his  instructions 
with  intelligence  and  good  spirit.  Here, 
again,  we  find  that  the  "  guessing  "  executive 
and  the  reasoning  executive  have  needs  in 
common,  as  no  executive  can  attain  the  full- 
est measure  of  success  unless  he  has  the  con- 
fidence and  co-operation  of  competent 
subordinates. 
Under  the  conditions  I  have  named,  and 

175 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

assuming  that  moderately  good  luck  attends 
his  activities,  it  is  possible  for  a  "  guessing  " 
executive  to  round  out  his  business  career  and 
go  into  retirement  with  an  unsullied  reputa- 
tion for  exceptional  executive  ability.  Per- 
haps the  probabilities  of  chance  are  against 
so  happy  an  ending  of  his  career,  but  it  is 
possible — just  barely  possible. 

The  phrase,  "  guessing  executive,"  has 
rather  an  unpleasant  sound,  and  it  gives  one 
cold  shivers  to  reflect  that  one's  favorite 
stock  may  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  president  or 
general  manager  who  decides  important  mat- 
ters by  guess.  To  say  that  a  man  acts  on 
intuition  sounds  better  than  to  say  that  he 
guesses,  but  I  am  unable  to  see  much  dif- 
ference between  the  two  methods.  While 
there  are  few  executives  who  will  admit  that 
they  frequently  reach  important  decisions  by 
guesswork,  there  are  a  great  many  who 
pride  themselves  on  what  they  call  their 
"  intuitive  judgment."  I  have  never  met  a 
man  who  possessed  "  intuitive  judgment," 

176 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

nor  have  I  ever  seen  a  white  blackbird.  I 
expect  to  enjoy  both  experiences  at  about  the 
same  time. 

I  do  not  think  I  go  too  far,  or  use  too 
strong  a  term,  when  I  say  that  a  considerable 
number  of  so-called  executive  are,  in  a  large 
degree,  guesswork  executives  and  apply  to 
many  of  the  matters  brought  before  them 
for  decision  about  the  same  methods  they 
would  use  if  you  asked  them  to  match  coins 
with  you.  Furthermore,  if  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  the  natural  executive  type  of  man, 
I  believe  that  one  of  his  characteristics  is 
likely  to  be  a  spirit  of  impatient  daring, 
which  sometimes  expresses  itself  in  guess- 
work, particularly  when  the  controlling  facts 
are  difficult  to  obtain,  or  require  extended 
consideration  for  their  proper  understand- 
ing. Therefore,  if  you  feel  that  you  are  a 
natural  born  executive,  and  there  is  any 
foundation  for  such  opinion,  it  will  not  be  a 
bad  idea  if,  every  morning  when  you  get 
out  of  bed,  you  make  this  resolution:  "  I  shall 

12  177 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

do  nothing  to-day  on  impulse.  For  my 
every  act  to-day  there  must  be  the  justifica- 
tion of  clearly  comprehended  facts."  Make 
and  observe  this  resolution  daily  for  the  next 
six  months  and  see  if  it  materially  changes 
your  methods,  your  point  of  view,  or  the 
quality  of  your  work.  If  you  really  believe 
that  you  possess  executive  capacity,  the  ex- 
periment is  worth  trying. 

I  have  had  a  good  deal  to  say  about  execu- 
tives and  executive  ability  without  giving 
you  a  definition  of  the-  latter.  My  silence  on 
that  interesting  point  is  quite  in  harmony 
with  the  manner  in  which  most  people  treat 
the  subject.  People  who  have  jobs  to  fill 
advertise  for  men  with  executive  ability,  and 
people  who  want  jobs  advertise  that  they 
possess  executive  ability.  One  complains 
that  he  can't  get  executive  ability,  while  the 
other  bemoans  the  fact  that  there  is  no  de- 
mand for  it.  In  most  cases,  neither  could 
tell  you  what  executive  ability  is.  Did  you 

178 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

ever  hear  a  business  man  undertake  to  define 
the  term? 

Whatever  it  is,  executive  ability  must  be 
a  very  curious  sort  of  gift.  I  know  a  man 
who  has  charge  of  the  employment  depart- 
ment of  a  large  corporation.  He  does  not 
employ  the  men  who  fill  the  more  important 
executive  positions  in  his  company's  organ- 
ization, but  he  does  hire  a  good  many  men 
for  positions  in  which  the  exercise  of  some 
executive  ability  is  required.  For  that  mat- 
ter, there  are  probably  few  positions  or  jobs 
in  any  business  which  do  not  call  for  at  least 
a  little  executive  capacity. 

Somewhere  he  chanced  to  read,  perhaps  it 
was  in  one  of  Mr.  Brisbane's  editorials,  that 
brunette  men  are  deficient  in  executive  abil- 
ity, while  blonde  men  are  likely  to  be  gifted 
in  that  respect.  Therefore,  what  was  more 
simple  and  logical  than  to  confine  to  blondes 
his  selection  of  men  for  executive  positions? 
I  admit  that  blonde  executive  sounds  a  little 
like  blonde  Esquimau,  but  I  am  sure  that 

179 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

anyone  who  carries  a  potato  in  his  pocket  to 
ward  off  rheumatism,  or  believes  that  a  man 
with  a  mole  on  his  neck  is  likely  to  have 
money  by  the  peck,  or  that  roan  horses  have 
greater  stamina  than  bay  horses  will  readily 
admit  that  a  blonde  executive  is  almost  cer- 
tain to  be  superior  to  a  brunette  executive. 

I  am  a  little  in  doubt  as  to  the  status  of  a 
brunette  if  he  turns  himself  into  a  peroxide 
blonde.  Perhaps  such  evidence  of  enterprise 
would  mark  him  as  a  man  of  the  true  blonde 
executive  instinct,  whose  coloring  is  merely 
the  result  of  an  unfortunate  throwback  to  an 
out-cross  of  brunette  forbears. 

I  am  further  disturbed  by  the  reflection 
that  the  increasing  preponderance  of  bru- 
nettes in  this  country  may  ultimately  reduce 
the  available  supply  of  blonde  executives  to 
a  point  where  it  will  be  inadequate  to  the 
nation's  needs.  However,  I  know  of  a 
source  of  supply  which  is  as  yet  practically 
untoudhed.  The  mountains  of  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  North  Carolina  and  Virginia  are 

180 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

full  of  men  who,  so  far  as  their  blondness  is 
concerned,  can  qualify  for  almost  any  sort 
of  executive  position. 

In  consonance  with  the  blonde  executive 
theory  there  are  many  persons  who  believe 
that  red  hair  indicates  a  hair  trigger  temper. 
If  your  ancestors  for  several  generations 
welcomed  gray  hair  or  baldness  as  an  escape 
from  such  epithets  as  "  Red  Head,"  "  Car- 
rot Top,"  "  Pinky,"  "  Lighthouse,"  etc.,  I 
dare  say  you  have  some  excuse  if  you  are 
both  red-headed  and  quick-tempered. 

As  between  the  two  theories  that  red- 
heads are  hot-tempered  and  that  blondes  are 
better  executives  than  brunettes,  I  am  in- 
clined to  put  greater  faith  in  the  red-head 
theory.  It  can  be  proved  more  quickly  and, 
on  the  whole,  with  less  disastrous  conse- 
quences. 

The  notion  that  blondes  are  better  execu- 
tives than  brunettes  is  probably  derived  from 
the  fact  that  a  majority  of  our  earliest  set- 
tlers were  natives  of  countries  where  blondes 

181 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

predominated.  Naturally  enough,  that  cir- 
cumstance resulted,  for  a  time,  in  a  predom- 
inance of  blonde  bosses — or  executives.  To 
the  blonde  executive,  who  is  descended  from 
a  line  of  blonde  bosses,  I  grant  the  benefit  of 
whatever  virtue  there  may  be  in  the  belief 
that  an  ancestor's  experience  develops  char- 
acteristics which  are  likely  to  be  transmitted 
to  his  descendants  in  the  form  of  latent  abil- 
ities. Personally,  I  think  this  theory  is  more 
dependable  in  respect  of  dogs  and  race 
horses  than  when  applied  to  human  beings, 
but  if  it  be  a  true  theory  in  relation  to 
humans,  we  must  still  consider  the  action  of 
the  leaven  which  has  been  introduced  by  the 
influx  of  dark-skinned  Hebrews,  Slavs  and 
Latins,  not  to  mention  the  frequent  black- 
visaged  Teuton,  and  the  occasional  brunette 
Scot,  Englishman  and  Irishman. 

Furthermore,  we  have  in  this  country  the 
saying  that "  It's  only  three  generations  from 
shirt  sleeves  to  shirt  sleeves."  Subtract  that 
theory  from  the  theory  that,  because  of  in- 

182 


THE  TRAINING~OF~A  SALESMAN 

herited  characteristics,  blondes  are  likely  to 
be  better  executives  than  brunettes,  and  I 
think  we  are  likely  to  strike  a  balance  which 
throws  us  back  on  coincidence  to  support 
whatever  views  we  may  entertain  as  to  the 
bearing  which  a  man's  complexion  is  likely 
to  have  upon  his  executive  capacity. 

Coincidence  is  the  wet  nurse  of  supersti- 
tion, and  coincidence  is  also  the  foundation  of 
most  of  the  dogmas  that  are  preached  from 
lecture  platforms  and  promulgated  through 
correspondence  schools  on  the  subject  of 
judging  men,  reading  character,  etc. 

Fifty  years  ago  it  is  quite  possible  that  a 
preference  for  blondes  in  the  choice  of  execu- 
tives was  both  justifiable  and  capable  of  be- 
ing exercised  without  difficulty,  but  inasmuch 
as  there  has  been  no  effective  way  of  prevent- 
ing the  mating  of  blondes  with  brunettes, 
and  as  the  latter,  however  deficient  their  ex- 
ecutive capacity  may  have  been,  seem  not  to 
have  been  deficient  in  marking  their  descen- 
dants with  at  least  a  suggestion  of  their  col- 

183 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

oring,  we  are  now  confronted  by  a  situation 
where  the  true  blondes  appear  to  be  greatly 
outnumbered  by  the  brunettes  and  near 
brunettes.  Accordingly,  one's  choice  of  an 
executive  is  considerably  hampered  if  it  must 
be  confined  to  blondes. 

Personally,  if  I  were  in  search  of  an  exec- 
utive, I  do  not  think  his  complexion  and  the 
color  of  his  eyes  or  hair  would  be  taken  into 
consideration.  If  this  is  unscientific,  the 
character  reading  dopesters  and  tipsters  may 
make  the  most  of  it.  I  am  prepared  to  con- 
cede the  evil  portent  of  a  black  cat  crossing 
one's  path,  and  the  disastrous  consequences 
that  are  likely  to  result  from  walking  under 
a  ladder,  and  the  ominous  significance  of  be- 
ing the  thirteenth  guest  at  dinner,  particu- 
larly if  the  cook  planned  for  only  twelve,  but 
I  am  not  yet  ready  to  adopt  the  superstitions 
which  have  been  welded  into  the  alleged 
science  of  character  reading. 

I  can't  read  character.  You  can't  either. 
Both  of  us  would  probably  be  wasting  our 

184 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

time  if  we  tried  to  learn.  If  you  can  under- 
stand your  own  character,  you  are  one  among 
ten  million.  The  flash  point  of  oil  can  be  pre- 
determined with  a  fair  degree  of  accuracy, 
but  the  flash  point  of  character  cannot.  If 
you  get  to  thinking  that  you  can  read  char- 
acter, you  will  need  a  lot  of  luck  to  keep  you 
out  of  trouble. 

If  we  are  to  hire  an  executive  before  this 
article  is  ended,  we  must  agree  now  that  we 
are  not  going  to  attempt  to  judge  his  char- 
acter by  his  looks,  or  by  his  actions,  unless  he 
acts  like  a  hop-head,  a  booze  fighter  or  a  fugi- 
tive from  justice. 

Before  we  attempt  to  hire  "  a  man  with 
executive  ability,"  let  us  try  to  decide  what 
executive  ability  is.  I  don't  see  how  we  can 
continue  longer  to  dodge  that  question,  do 
you?  Primarily,  executive  ability  is  the  abil- 
ity to  do  things.  In  the  cave  age  the  cave 
man  executive  was  a  man  who  could  go  and 
get  meat  regardless  of  difficulties.  He  didn't 
rely  on  anyone  but  himself.  In  our  more 

185 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

complex  modern  life,  executive  ability  seems 
to  consist  chiefly  in  the  ability  to  get  other 
people  to  do  things  better  than  you  could  do 
them  yourself. 

I  have  an  acquaintance  of  German  descent 
who  owns  a  large  machine  shop.  Recently, 
after  listening  impatiently  to  a  subordinate's 
report,  he  said  explosively,  "  The  next  time  I 
got  to  have  a  fool  do  sometings,  I  do  it 
myself." 

This  man  is  far  from  being  a  fool  and  takes 
himself  much  too  seriously  to  have  intended 
any  disparagement  of  his  own  intelligence. 
His  irritated  remark  was  merely  a  somewhat 
amusing  attempt  to  express  the  too-common 
belief  among  business  men  that,  if  you  want 
a  thing  well  done,  you  must  do  it  yourself. 
There  is  a  copybook  proverb,  with  which  we 
are  all  familiar,  to  such  effect  and  also  a 
most  interesting  fable  which  expounds 'the 
same  theory.  However  logical  the  theory 
may  be,  it  is  one  that  has  no  proper  place  in 
the  head  of  a  business  executive. 

186 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

Some  years  ago  a  factory  manager  said 
to  me:  "  Charles  Deere,  the  plow  manufac- 
turer, started  me  on  the  road  to  success. 
When  I  came  from  the  old  country  I  got  a 
job  as  a  laborer  with  Deere  &  Company,  at 
iMoline,  Ills.  After  a  time  I  was  made  boss 
of  the  yard  gang.  It  was  the  duty  of  the 
yard  gang  to  keep  the  factory  grounds  in 
order.  There  were  five  or  six  men  under  me, 
and  I  felt  pretty  proud  of  my  job.  A  few 
hours  after  my  appointment,  I  took  my  men 
around  to  the  office  building  to  remove  some 
debris.  Instead  of  telling  the  men  what  to 
do,  I  commenced  picking  up  the  rubbish,  and 
they  stood  idly  by  and  watched  me.  Of 
course,  it  was  only  a  momentary  condition, 
but  Mr.  Deere  happened  to  come  to  an  open 
window  and  observe  it. 

'Are  you  the  new  yard  boss?'  he 
inquired. 

*  Yes,  sir,'  I  proudly  replied. 

'  Why  don't  you  have  chairs  for  your 
men,  so  that  they  will  be  more  comfortable 

187 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

while  they  watch  you  work? '  Mr.  Deere 
remarked,  as  he  turned  away  from  the 
window. 

"  That  incident  taught  me  a  valuable  les- 
son. Ever  since  then  I  have  tried  to  avoid 
doing  anything  that  a  subordinate  was  capa- 
ble of  doing." 

Frequently,  I  catch  myself  in  the  act  of 
zestfully  attending  to  all  the  details  of  some 
relatively  unimportant  matter,  while  my  as- 
sistants stand  or  sit  around  and  watch  me 
do  it.  I  wonder  if  all  executives,  big  and 
little,  don't  have  this  fault  in  some  degree. 
One  often  hears  an  executive  say,  "  I  sup- 
pose I  ought  not  to  do  this  myself,  but  I  can 
do  it  in  less  time  than  I  could  tell  anybody 
how  I  want  it  done."  Such  reasoning  may 
be  justified,  if  the  task  to  be  performed  is 
not  likely  to  occur  again,  but  if  its  recurrence 
is  at  all  probable,  the  time  required  to  teach 
a  subordinate  how  to  deal  with  subsequent 
cases  would  ordinarily  be  well  spent. 

Within  the  past  few  months  a  man  who  is 

188 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

more  or  less  of  an  international  figure  in 
commercial  and  financial  circles,  acquired 
control  of  a  large  manufacturing  company. 
The  general  manager  of  the  company  was  an 
experienced  man  and  seemed  likely  to  enjoy 
high  favor  with  the  new  proprietor.  The 
two  took  a  business  trip  together.  After 
their  return  the  owner  of  the  company  said 
to  his  immediate  associates :  "  We've  got  to 
put  another  man  in  charge  of  that  business. 
That  fellow  won't  do." 

"  What's  the  matter  with  him?  " 
"  He  carries  his  brains  in  a  memorandum 
book.  If  he  lost  the  book,  his  mind  would 
be  a  blank.  Make  him  secretary,  or  some- 
thing like  that,  and  get  a  man  for  manager 
who  doesn't  use  a  memorandum  book  except 
for  addresses  and  appointments." 

It  is  doubtful  if  the  reason  he  assigned 
was  the  sole  reason  for  this  gentleman's  loss 
of  confidence  in  the  general  manager,  or  that 
he  entertains  the  extreme  views  about  mem- 
oranda books  which  his  remarks  indicate,  but 

189 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

the  incident  serves  to  introduce  a  discussion 
of  the  danger  that  the  secretarial  type  of  man 
may  be  mistaken,  or  may  mistake  himself, 
for  the  executive  type. 

Most  of  you  have  heard  the  story  of  Mark 
Twain's  alleged  remark  to  the  author  of  a 
popular  book  that  had  recently  appeared: 
"  There's  nothing  new  in  your  book.  I  have 
a  book  at  home  that  contains  everything 
that's  in  your  book — and  a  great  deal  more 
besides." 

The  author  indignantly  refuted  this  im- 
plication of  plagiarism  and  challenged  Mark 
Twain  to  name  the  book  to  which  he  referred. 

"  Webster's  Unabridged  Dictionary," 
Twain  dryly  replied. 

There  are  men  whose  heads  are  nearly  as 
full  of  knowledge  as  the  dictionary  of  words 
and,  in  some  instances,  such  knowledge  is  as 
well  indexed  as  the  dictionary,  but  not  in- 
frequently these  men  prove  unable  to  co- 
ordinate their  knowledge  into  effective  plans 
or  policies.  They  are  mere  curators  of 

190 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

knowledge,  ready  to  display  it  upon  request, 
but  lacking  the  ability  to  make  practical 
use  of  it. 

In  choosing  an  executive,  the  first  peril 
to  avoid  is  the  man  who  thinks  he  has  "  in- 
tuitive judgment."  Him  we  have  already 
discussed.  Another  danger  is  encountered 
in  the  live-wire  type  of  man,  whose  alert  man- 
ner, readiness  of  speech  and  comprehensive 
knowledge  temporarily  blind  our  percep- 
tions to  whatever  defects  he  may  have. 

I  believe  Louis  XI  is  said  to  have  made  a 
barber  his  most  trusted  adviser,  because  of 
the  latter's  deftness  with  the  razor.  I  imagine 
the  crafty  king  had  other  reasons,  but  the 
legend  frequently  has  a  substantial  equiv- 
alent in  modern  business,  when  somebody's 
secretary,  or  somebody  else's  assistant,  is 
made  manager  of  something  or  other,  be- 
cause he  always  knew  what  his  boss  wanted 
and  how  to  find  it.  Recently  I  noticed  a  cor- 
respondence school's  advertisement  in  which, 
as  I  recall  it,  the  illustration  showed  a  well 

191 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

set  up  young  man  being  promoted  to  an 
important  executive  position,  because  he  had 
been  able  to  give  the  directors  a  scrap  of 
knowledge  which  they  wanted — and  which 
he  had  obtained  in  his  correspondence  course. 
After  making  due  allowance  for  the  license 
that  it  was  necessary  for  the  artist  to  take 
in  expressing  this  idea  in  a  single  picture,  I 
am  free  to  admit  that  such  things  actually 
happen  quite  frequently  and  constitute  one 
of  the  many  excellent  reasons  why  a  young 
man  should  acquire  all  of  the  knowledge  he 
can  absorb.  However,  it  is  rather  hazardous 
to  select  executives  in  this  way. 

Several  years  ago  a  company  was  formed 
to  take  over  three  or  four  smaller  companies. 
Due  either  to  chance  or  the  standards  of 
judgment  employed  in  selecting  men,  a  con- 
siderable number  of  executive  positions  were 
filled  with  men  of  the  secretarial  type.  These 
men  proceeded  with  beautiful  precision  to 
perfect  an  organization  which  would  move 
like  clockwork.  The  policies  of  the  company 

192 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

and  the  duties  of  its  employees  were  clearly 
and  comprehensively  set  forth.  Every  man 
was  a  cog  and  was  shown  how  to  mesh  with 
his  neighboring  cog.  Of  course,  while  the  or- 
ganization was  being  perfected,  there  was 
considerable  disorder  and  disorganization, 
but  this  was  hopefully  excused  by  the  prom- 
ise that  "  everything  will  be  all  right  when 
we  get  all  departments  properly  correlated." 
Finally  the  machine  was  ready.  They  pulled 
the  lever.  The  machine  started,  but  it  be- 
haved in  a  most  eccentric  manner.  Some 
cogs  revolved,  while  others  didn't.  Scarely 
any  part  of  this  business  machine  functioned 
as  it  was  intended  to  function.  The  design- 
ers explored  the  machine  with  perplexity. 
'  This  is  covered  by  instructions ;  that  is  cov- 
ered by  instructions;  everything  is  covered 
by  instructions,"  they  assured  and  reassured 
each  other.  They  were  still  pothering  about, 
issuing  new  instructions  and  enlarging  pre- 
vious instructions  when  the  president  and 
principal  stockholder  returned  from  a  trip 

13  193 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

to  Europe.  He  decided  that  the  machine 
was  too  big  for  the  available  motive  power. 
"  I  want  a  less  complicated  machine  and  a 
bigger  power  plant,"  was,  in  effect,  what  he 
said.  "  I'm  going  to  appoint  a  new  gen- 
eral manager." 

He  selected  a  man  who  had  been  in  tem- 
porary eclipse,  but  of  whom  associates  said : 
"  He's  got  a  level  head;  he's  on  the  square, 
and,  while  I  guess  he's  not  exactly  what  you 
could  call  an  up-to-date  man,  when  compared 
with  these  other  fellows,  still  he  always  used 
to  be  able  to  get  things  done." 

The  new  general  manager  proceeded 
rather  slowly.  He  tinkered  with  the  organ- 
ization and  gradually  succeeded  in  simplify- 
ing it.  He  built  up  the  managerial  power 
plant  by  replacing  theorists  with  result-get- 
ters and  to-day  there  is  probably  no  more 
ably  managed  corporation  in  the  world,  or 
one  in  which  the  percentage  of  administrative 
expense  is  lower. 

I  recall  having  been  in  the  general  offices 

194 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

of  this  company  at  the  height  of  its  so-called 
scientific  management.  Each  floor  was 
crowded  with  desks,  at  which  clerks  were 
feverishly  compiling,  or  checking,  or  coun- 
terchecking,  voluminous  reports.  Around 
the  edges  were  quantities  of  little  box  stalls 
that  sheltered  numerous  managers,  assist- 
ant managers,  assistants  to  assistant  man- 
agers and  assistants  to  assistants  of  assistant 
managers.  Office  boys  rushed  hither  and 
thither  under  the  alert  espionage  of  persons 
duly  appointed  to  see  that  the  company  got 
its  money's  worth  out  of  each  boy.  Truly, 
the  scene  was  inspiring,  particularly  to  one 
who  did  not  have  to  pay  the  bills. 

A  few  years  later  I  was  in  the  same  office 
again.  A  portion  of  the  office  building  had 
meanwhile  been  sublet  and  on  the  floors  which 
I  visited,  there  seemed  to  be  less  than  half 
as  many  men  as  there  had  been  before. 

"  What  has  happened?  "  I  inquired. 

"  Oh,  we  just  unwound  a  little  red  tape 
and  released  a  lot  of  men.  .  .  .  No,  we 

195 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

didn't  fire  any  of  them.  Most  of  them  are 
still  with  us,  but  they  are  out  in  the  field  now 
and  doing  productive  work." 

The  secretarial  type  of  man  and  the  exec- 
utive type  of  man  are  almost  exact  opposites, 
but  it  is  sometimes  very  difficult  to  detect  tho 
secretarial  type  and  avoid  his  appointment  to 
an  executive  post.  Frequently  he  makes  a 
better  first  impression  than  the  executive 
type,  because  his  mental  processes  are  more 
easily  comprehended  and  a  sympathetic  un- 
derstanding is  more  readily  established. 
Perhaps  plausibility  is  one  of  the  symptoms 
of  the  secretarial  type  of  man.  I  rather 
think  it  is. 

Several  years  ago  I  unwittingly  selected 
for  a  minor  executive  position  the  kind  of 
man  I  call  the  secretarial  type.  He  started 
off  like  a  whirlwind  and  I  congratulated. my- 
self on  the  wisdom  of  my  choice.  After  a 
time,  though,  his  department  began  to  limp. 
One  day  I  said  to  him,  "  Your  men  aren't 
doing  so  and  so." 

196 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

"  I'm  all  covered  on  that,"  he  asserted 
confidently. 

"  What  do  you  mean  you're  all  covered?  " 

"  It's  fully  covered  in  my  instructions  to 
the  men,"  he  explained. 

"  What  do  I  care  about  that?  It  isn't  be- 
ing done;  that's  the  point  I'm  making — it 
isn't  being  done" 

"  I'll  follow  it  up  right  away,"  he  reassured 
me.  The  minute  he  said  he  would  "  follow 
it  up,"  I  knew  I  had  a  secretary  in  a  man- 
ager's job.  I  didn't  want  him  to  "follow  it 
up!9  I  wanted  him  to  see  that  it  was  done. 
If,  when  you  ask  him  for  a  definite  result, 
a  man  merely  describes  the  methods  he  pro- 
poses to  employ,  you  can  usually  be  pretty 
certain  that  he  is  the  secretarial  type  of  man, 
who  in  the  event  of  failure  will  say,  "  Well, 
I  did  all  I  could.  It  isn't  up  to  me.  My 
skirts  are  clear." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  true  executive  is 
seldom  very  ready  with  alibis  or  excuses. 
When  his  ship  sinks,  he  usually  goes  down 

197 


THE  TRAINING  OP  A  SALESMAN 

with  the  ship — his  colors  nailed  to  the  mast. 

But,  how  are  we  to  detect  executive  abil- 
ity in  men  we  do  not  know,  or  even  in  men 
we  do  know,  if  the  latter  have  never  had  an 
opportunity  to  show  what  is  in  them?  I'm 
afraid  there  is  no  certain  way  to  decide 
whether  a  man  possesses  executive  ability, 
unless  he  has  made  a  record  that  proves  it. 

If  I  am  trying  to  form  an  opinion  of  a 
man's  executive  ability,  I  observe  with  inter- 
est the  most  unimportant  things  he  does.  On 
more  than  one  occasion,  I  have  been  some- 
what enlightened  by  the  way  in  which  a  man 
tries  to  hasten  the  service  of  his  dinner  in  a 
crowded  restaurant.  If  he  prematurely 
sends  the  captain  to  find  out  what  is  detain- 
ing the  waiter  and,  a  few  minutes  later,  de- 
spatches a  bus  boy  after  the  head- waiter  with 
a  view  to  learning  why  the  captain  hasn't  re- 
ported, I  gain  a  rather  unfavorable  opinion 
of  his  executive  ability.  On  the  other  hand, 
if,  at  the  very  outset,  he  establishes  a  friendly 
understanding  with  his  waiter  and  gets  the 

198 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

latter  cheerfully  committed  to  haste,  and  then 
settles  down  with  apparent  confidence  in  the 
outcome,  I  am  inclined  to  be  favorably  im- 
pressed. A  "  fussy  "  man  is  seldom  a  good 
executive. 

On  a  certain  occasion  I  was  rather  well  im- 
pressed by  a  young  man  who,  quite  unosten- 
tatiously, delegated  a  bell  boy  to  seal,  stamp 
and  post  his  letters,  a  second  bell  boy  to  go 
to  his  room  and  pack  his  bag  and  a  third  to 
pay  his  hotel  bill,  in  order  that  he  might 
leisurely  conclude  a  conversation  with  my 
companion  and  myself  and  obtain  our  signa- 
tures to  a  contract  before  he  started  for  the 
railway  station. 

Afterwards)  my  companion  remarked: 
"  I'd  hate  to  have  to  pay  that  fellow's  travel- 
ing expenses.  He  had  pretty  nearly  every 
bell  hop  in  the  hotel  waiting  on  him." 

My  companion's  viewpoint  was  quite  dif- 
ferent from  mine.  The  cost  of  the  procedure 
interested  him.  The  time  that  was  saved 

for  the  more  important  matter1  of  our  nego- 
100 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

tiations  interested  me.  Did  the  young  man 
show  executive  ability,  or  was  he  merely  ex- 
travagant? It  is  perhaps  an  open  question. 
At  the  time  of  which  I  speak,  this  young 
man  was  a  traveling  salesman.  Lately  I 
have  heard  of  him  as  the  sales  manager  of 
his  company. 

I  must  frankly  confess  that  I  cannot  form 
a  satisfactory  opinion  of  a  man's  executive 
ability  until  I  have  seen  other  evidences  of 
it  than  are  usually  manifested  by  his  speech 
and  actions.  What  a  man  has  actually  done 
is  the  best  guide  and,  in  my  opinion,  the  only 
dependable  one.  Without  that  guide,  you've 
got  to  guess — and  hope  for  the  best. 


THE  50-DOLLAR-A-WEEK  GIRL 

A  GIKL  student  of  architecture  in  a  western 
co-educational  university  asks  me  to  write 
what  I  would  do  if  I  were  a  girl  and  had  my 
way  to  make  in  the  world.  Another  young 
woman,  who  is  a  special  writer  on  a  New 
York  daily  paper,  makes  a  similar  request. 
Finally,  a  prosaic  book  reviewer  advances 
the  same  suggestion.  This  constitutes  what 
a  politician  would  call  "  a  widespread  popu- 
lar demand."  Men  have  run  for  Congress 
with  less  excuse. 

What  I  am  expected  to  do  is  to  forget  the 
new  occupations  for  women,  which  the  war 
created,  and  state  how  I  think  a  fine-grained, 
ambitious  girl  can  make  a  permanent  place 
for  herself  in  the  business  world — a  place  in 
which  she  will  not  be  disturbed  when  our 
soldier  boys  come  back  to  take  their  old  jobs. 
Therefore,  I  propose  to  write  about  the  girl 
who  wants  to  be  a  $50-a-week  girl. 

Young  lady,  the  first  thing  to  consider 
is  your  state  of  mind.    How  serious  are  you? 

201 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

Are  you  really  determined  to  make  good? 
How  game  are  you? 

Seven  years  ago  there  came  to  our  office  a 
young  girl,  just  out  of  high  school.  She  had 
rajven  black  hair,  tremendous)  eyes  and  a 
wonderful  complexion  of  the  Latin  type. 
She  was  a  trifle  frightened,  but  a  good  bit 
determined.  In  an  emergency  she  did  some 
work  for  me.  I  am  averse  to  male  secre- 
taries, and  later,  when  I  lost  the  New  Eng- 
land spinster  who  had  been  acting  as  my 
assistant,  I  remembered  this  young  lady  and 
she  became  my  secretary.  I  have  never  re- 
gretted it,  but  I  have  no  doubt  she  has,  as  I 
drove  her  finally  into  a  close  approach  to 
nervous  prostration.  She  looked  after  my 
business  correspondence  and  other  business 
affairs  during  business  hours.  At  night  she 
transcribed  interminable  folios  of  manu- 
script for  me,  meanwhile,  without  my  knowl- 
edge, taking  a  university  extension  course  in 
secretarial  work  in  addition  to  lessons  on  the 
pianoforte,  that  resulted  ultimately  in  nerve- 
trying  recitals—to  which,  significantly  per- 

202 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

haps,  I  was  not  invited.  She  grew  stale,  and 
I,  being  uninformed  as  to  the  reasons  for  it, 
became  more  and  more  intolerant  of  her  low- 
ered efficiency.  Finally  she  collapsed  and 
had  to  quit  for  a  couple  of  months.  Now  she 
is  back  again,  wholly  rehabilitated,  I  judge, 
but  nevertheless  in  a  position  to  assume  a 
mild  pose  of  martyrdom  if  she  chose,  which 
happily  she  shows  no  indication  of  doing. 

I  mention  this  young  woman  because  I 
think  she  possibly  affords  an  illustration  of 
a  very  important  quality  which  every  girl  in 
business  should  cultivate.  She  was  game  to 
the  finish.  She  offered  no  excuses  and  asked 
no  indulgence.  If  a  girl  goes  into  business 
seriously,  and  does  not  regard  it  merely  as  a 
pre-nuptial  epoch  in  her  life,  I  think  that  the 
example  of  my  secretary  is  a  very  good  one. 
To  accept  uncomplainingly  and  unostenta- 
tiously a  man's  lot,  without  being  in  the  least 
mannish,  is  the  best  basic  formula  I  know  of 
for  a  girl's  successful  career  in  business. 

If  I  were  a  girl  and  twenty-one — or  more 

203 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

or  less — there  are  two  things  I  would  do,  ir- 
respective of  the  vocation  I  intended  to 
adopt. 

First  of  all,  I  would  develop  a  good  vocab- 
ulary and  the  correct  use  of  English.  Read- 
ing good  books  is  a  first-rate  'method  of 
acquiring  a  good  vocabulary,  and  it  is  also  an 
excellent  way  to  acquire  the  instinctive  use 
of  good  grammar — otherwise  correct  Eng- 
lish. Reading  good  books  is  a  good  thing  in 
more  respects  than  one. 

Secondly,  I  would  cultivate  my  voice — not 
my  singing  voice,  but  my  speaking  voice. 
I  would  learn  to  speak  in  well-modulated 
tones  and  to  place  my  accents  correctly,  but 
without  the  slightest  tincture  of  aif  ectation. 
Incidentally,  if  I  lived  in  New  York,  I 
should  learn  not  to  say,  "  I  sawr  her  in  At- 
lanter,"  or  if  I  lived  in  Chicago,  I  should 
avoid  saying,  "  I  sez  to  her  jest  yestidy." 

A  girl  who  speaks  good  English  in  a  well- 
modulated  voice  has  a  great  many  advan- 
tages over  a  girl  who  doesn't.  A  perplexed 

204 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

southerner  said  to  me  the  other  day,  "  I  de- 
clare, suh,  I  certainly  am  confused  by  the 
way  the  New  York  ladies  dress  themselves 
and  paint  their  faces.  I  just  naturally  can't 
tell  a  debutante  from  a  courtesan — not  by 
looking  at  'em,  at  least;  no,  suh,  not  by  look- 
ing at  'em,  can  I  tell  one  from  the  other." 

The  major's  eyes  could  not  distinguish  a 
nice  girl  from  a  girl  of  the  streets.  Perhaps 
that  is  rather  a  sad  commentary  on  the  way 
New  York  girls  attire  themselves,  but  this 
is  not  a  discussion  of  dress,  and,  accordingly, 
that  point  may  be  ignored.  What  I  wish  to 
emphasize  is  this:  While  the  major's  eyes 
could  not  detect  the  good  girls  from  the  bad 
girls  as  he  surveyed  Fifth  Avenue's  ravish- 
ing throng,  his  ears  would  have  passed  in- 
stantly a  favorable  judgment  on  any  girl 
who  spoke  in  cultured  tones.  Good  Eng- 
lish and  a  well-modulated  voice  are  rather 
effective  safeguards  against  being  misunder- 
stood— and  not  to  be  misunderstood  is  some- 
times quite  important  to  a  girl  who  has  her 
own  way  to  make  in  the  world. 

205 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

Cultured  speech,  in  addition  to  being  a 
hallmark  of  propriety,  if  not  of  virtue,  has 
other  practical  advantages.  Three  years 
ago  two  friends  of  mine  and  I  started  a  retail 
store.  This  store  was  to  be  "  an  experi- 
mental store,"  where  we  proposed  to  develop 
and  test  out  various  methods  of  merchandis- 
ing an  article  in  which  we  were  interested. 
It  has  gained  some  fame  and  is  known 
throughout  the  commercial  world  as  a  "  Re- 
tail Sales  Laboratory,"  whatever  that  means. 
There  are  now  numerous  stores  in  this  coun- 
try that  are  patterned  after  it;  also  there  is 
one  in  Havana  and  another  in  Madrid.  Now 
that  the  war  has  ended  similar  stores  will  no 
doubt  be  established  in  all  the  principal  Eu- 
ropean cities. 

When  the  operating  staff  was  organized 
for! the  original  store,  we  found  that  we 
needed  a  girl.  I  wrote  the  specifications  of 
this  girl  and  gave  them  to  our  employment 
agent.  She  must  be  thoroughly  nice;  she 
must  write  a  fashionable  hand  (not  the 

203 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

scrawly  sort  of  penmanship  that  our  public 
schools  seem  to  teach),  and  she  must  have  a 
cultured  voice,  because  we  expected  her  to 
answer  the  telephone  in  a  way  that  would 
make  friends  for  the  store. 

After  a  few  days  the  employment  agent 
came  to  me  and  said:  "  I  can  get  you  every- 
thing but  the  voice.  There  don't  seem  to 
be  any  dames  with  good  voices  looking  for 
work  just  now."  Finally,  however,  we  found 
the  girl  we  wanted;  a  demure  young  woman 
who  possessed  a  well-modulated  voice  as  well 
as  the  other  qualities  that  were  desired.  She 
has  since  become  known  to  the  patrons  of  the 
store,  with  whom  she  has  telephonic  conver- 
sations, as  "  the  girl  with  the  pleasant  voice," 
and  the  "  experimental  store  "  has  demon- 
strated so  conclusively  the  advantages  of 
having  "  a  girl  with  a  pleasant  voice  "  that 
a  good  many  other  stores  in  the  same  line  of 
business  have  since  obtained — or  now  seek — 
young  women  who  know  how  to  speak  the 
English  language  both  correctly  and  agree- 

207 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

ably.  This  young  lady  is  now  the  book- 
keeper and  assistant  manager  of  the  store  at 
a  fairly  good  salary.  She  had  other  good 
qualities,  to  be  sure,  but  the  fact  remains  that 
her  voice  got  her  the  job. 

I  know  of  still  another  case.  One  day  a 
slip  of  an  Irish  girl  came  to  see  me.  She  was 
an  assistant  librarian  at  one  of  the  New  York 
libraries,  and  her  particular  stunt  was  the 
telling  of  stories  to  children.  She  wanted  to 
make  some  phonograph  records.  She  didn't 
possess  the  kind  of  voice  that  would  produce 
what  we  call "  a  performance  "  on  the  phono- 
graph, but  her  ingenious  personality  and  her 
softly  modulated  voice  had  a  sort  of  wood 
violet  appeal,  which  a  couple  of  years  later 
recalled  her  to  my  mind,  and  she  now  travels 
the  United  States  and  Canada  instructing 
merchants  how  to  put  a  trifle  of  practical 
grace  into  their  merchandising  methods.  She 
first  served  a  novitiate  of  two  years  in  our 
"  experimental  store  "  and  developed  there 
the  methods  that  she  now  imparts  to  other 
merchants. 

208 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

You  will  note  that  I  have  spoken  of  the 
career  of  three  girls.  Two  of  them  are  em- 
ploying their  talents  in  merchandising  and 
the  third,  my  secretary,  may  also  be  regarded 
as  a  sort  of  glorified  saleswoman,  since  a 
large  part  of  her  value  in  her  present  posi- 
tion is  due  to  the  fact  that  she  has  acquired 
an  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  various 
sales  problems  in  which  I  am  interested. 

What  I  have  said  up  to  now  would 
probably  be  summed  up  by  a  newspaper 
head-line  writer  in  a  few  words;  perhaps 
something  like  this: 

SPEAK  SOFTLY,  GIRLS,  AND  BE 
SALESWOMEN 


ACCEPT  MAN'S  LOT  WITHOUT  BEING  MANNISH,  Is 
BUSINESS  MAN'S  ADVICE 

What  will  my  co-ed  student  of  architec- 
ture say  to  that  advice?  I'm  pretty  sure 
she'll  sniff  scornfully  and  toss  her  head.  A 
university  course  in  architecture  will  seem  to 
her  to  lead  far  away  from  saleswomanship. 

14  209 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

Nevertheless,  the  most  successful  architects 
I  know  are  good  salesmen.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  know  of  a  splendid  architect — "  a 
real  artist,"  "  a  creator  of  things  that  en- 
dure " — who  works,  and  likely  enough  will 
always  work,  at  a  modest  salary  for  other 
architects,  merely  because  he  isn't  a  salesman. 
It  is  a  plebeian  sort  of  word — salesman — but 
the  quality  of  successful  salesmanship  has 
made  more  men  successful  than  any  other 
single  human  quality.  If  you  will  look  about 
you  and  draw  off  an  inventory  of  the  success- 
ful men  you  know,  I  am  sure  you  will  find 
that  a  majority  of  them  are  good  salesmen. 
This  applies  to  bankers,  lawyers,  doctors, 
architects,  scientists,  engineers,  and — even  to 
clergymen — just  as  much  as  it  does  to  shop- 
keepers. No  matter  who  or  what  he  is,  a 
man  hasn't  really  arrived  until  he  can 
successfully  sell  himself  and  his  work.  If 
salesmanship  is  good  in  all  pursuits  and  pro- 
fessions followed  by  men,  certainly  sales- 

womansMp  is  a  quality  which  every  woman 
210 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

should  cultivate,  no  matter  what  her  voca- 
tion may  be. 

Were  I  my  co-ed  student  of  architecture, 
I  would  devote  a  great  deal  of  thought  to 
saleswomanship.  Anticipating  the  time 
when  I  expected  to  receive  my  degree,  I 
should  endeavor  to  develop  a  definite  plan  of 
turning  my  knowledge  of  architecture  into  a 
commodity  and  selling  that  commodity. 
How  can  professional  skill  be  turned  into  a 
commodity?  The  answer  is  very  simple. 
Professional  skill  is  the  capacity  to  give 
service.  The  instant  you  standardize  such 
service  and  put  a  definite  price  on  it,  you 
have  made  it  a  commodity.  I  don't  know 
much  about  architects  except  that  their 
charges,  like  those  of  a  lawyer,  usually  prove 
to  be  more  than  you  anticipated,  but  I  am 
sure  that  a  bright  young  lady,  such  as  my 
co-ed  student  of  architecture,  could  sell  her 
architectural  knowedge  as  a  commodity. 
Possibly,  in  co-operation  with  a  real  estate 

firm,  she  could  promote  the  sale  of  lots  in  a 
211 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

subdivision.  If  the  ethics  of  the  architect's 
profession  do  not  stand  in  the  way,  I  think 
Miss  Co-Ed  might  interest  a  good  many 
people  by  an  advertisement  that  read  some- 
what as  follows: 

Miss  Co-Ed 
Will  Plan  Your  House 

Miss  Co-Ed  will  confer  with  your  wife  and 
incorporate  all  of  your  wife's  cherished  ideas 
in  a  home,  built  exactly  as  you  want  it,  at 

Lonesomehurst 

28  minutes  from  Modern  Babylon  by 
Short  Island  Ry.;  Paved  Streets;  Electric 
Light;  Pure  Water,  and  the  most  modern 
sewerage  system. 

Pay  Like  Rent 

You  can  buy  a  large  and  splendidly  lo- 
cated lot  in  beautiful  Lonesomehurst.  Miss 
Co-Ed  will  help  you  and  your  wife  plan  the 
house  (no  extra  charge  for  Miss  Co-Ed's 
services) ;  we  will  build  the  house  for  you; 
and  you  can  pay  for  this  wonderful  made-to- 
order  home,  a  little  down  and  the  rest  like 
rent. 

Etc.,  Etc. 
212 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

To  be  sure,  the  foregoing  isn't  a  good 
advertisement.  One  has  to  know  something 
about  a  business  before  one  can  write  a  good 
advertisement  of  such  business — and  I  know 
nothing  about  the  real  estate  business.  Nev- 
ertheless, a  bad  example  is  better  than  no 
example  at  all  when  you  are  attempting  to 
make  yourself  clear,  and  I  trust  that  Miss 
Co-Ed,  however  much  she  may  scorn  my 
illustration,  will  not  fail  to  grasp  the  point 
I  am  trying  to  make.  Also  I  hope  that  this 
illustration  may  suggest  to  other  professional 
young  ladies  how  their  respective  professions 
might,  if  necessary,  be  turned  into  salable 
commodities. 

A  clever,  well-educated,  ambitious  and 
thoroughly  nice  girl  can  go  a  long  way 
toward  big  achievements  in  retail  merchan- 
dising. Three  or  four  years  ago  Mr.  Wan- 
amaker,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  retail 
merchants,  remarked  to  me  concerning  a 
well-poised  young  woman  who  had  paused 
momentarily  to  acknowledge  my  introduc- 

213 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

tion  to  her:  "  She  is  a  college  graduate;  in- 
tended to  be  a  writer.  We  finally  convinced 
her  that  good  literature  could  be  written 
about  our  merchandise  in  our  newspaper 
advertisements.  She  does  it,  and  I  expect 
it  pays  her  better  than  writing  books." 

That  is  the  point.  It  does  pay  to  turn 
your  talents  to  salesmanship.  It  pays  bet- 
ter than  almost  anything  else — and  it  is  tre- 
mendously good  fun. 

If  I  were  a  girl  I  should  not  study  stenog- 
raphy, but  if  I  were  a  stenographer  I  would 
study  advertising.  Probably  I  should  take 
a  correspondence  course  in  advertising.  I 
would  read  the  magazines  that  deal  with 
advertising  and  selling.  I  would  study 
the  advertisements  in  the  newspapers  and 
magazines.  I  would  also  study  letter  writ- 
ing, particularly  the  composition  of  let- 
ters that  will  bring  in  orders.  From  time 
to  time,  with  due  humility,  I  would  place 
before  my  boss  a  suggestion  for  a  letter  or 
an  advertisement.  I'd  give  it  to  my  boss, 

214 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

even  if  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  advertising 
or  sales.  If  you  make  an  ally  of  your  boss, 
you  will  find  it  a  big  help. 

If  I  were  a  sales  girl  in  a  department  store, 
I  would  study  what  my  store's  advertising 
had  to  say  about  the  goods  in  my  depart- 
ment. When  I  went  on  duty  for  the  day  I 
would  know  what  the  store's  advertisements 
had  led  my  customers  to  expect,  and  my 
sales  talk  would  not  disappoint  them.  I 
would  constantly  keep  in  step  with  my  store's 
advertising,  which  is  a  thing  most  sales  girls 
do  not  do.  When  an  advertisement  seemed 
to  have  been  particularly  helpful,  I  would 
send  a  note  of  appreciation  to  the  advertis- 
ing manager. 

I  would  also  study  competitors'  advertis- 
ing day  by  day,  so  that  I  should  know  what 
my  customers  expected  to  find  at  the  other 
stores.  Then,  without  knocking  competitors 
or  even  mentioning  them,  I  would  try  to  pic- 
ture the  virtues  of  my  own  store's  merchan- 
dise in  a  way  to  nullify  the  advertising  of  the 
other  stores. 

215 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

I  would  keep  a  scrap  book  of  my  store's 
advertising  and  also  of  competitors'  adver- 
tising. In  the  scrap  book  I  would  make, 
opposite  each  of  my  store's  advertisements, 
a  marginal  record  of  my  sales  for  that  day 
and  I  would  set  down  brief  comment  on  the 
drawing  power  and  selling  power  of  each 
advertisement,  as  judged  by  my  experience 
behind  the  counter.  Whenever  I  was  able 
to  reach  a  conclusion  from  this  information, 
that  I  thought  might  be  helpful  to  my  store, 
I  would  bring  it  to  the  attention  of  the  proper 
person.  I  believe  my  scrap  book  data  would 
prove  more  interesting  that  the  cold  figures 
in  the  general  manager's  office. 

I  would  get  reference  books  from  the 
library  and  study  the  lines  of  merchandise 
that  were  handled  by  my  department.  I 
would  try  to  become  more  or  less  of  an  ex- 
pert on  all  of  them. 

In  short,  I  would  try  in  all  proper  ways  to 
attract  attention  to  myself  as  a  capable,  in- 
telligent and  ambitious  saleswoman,  and 

216 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

when  I  had  finally  succeeded  in  doing  that, 
I  should  want  to  be  able  to  surprise  my  em- 
ployers by  the  unexpected  depths  of  my 
knowledge  and  comprehension  of  the  busi- 
ness. Bluff  won't  make  you  a  fifty-dollar- 
a-week  girl.  You've  really  got  to  know  more 
and  be  able  to  do  more  than  a  fifteen-dollar- 
a-week  girl,  if  you  expect  to  rise  above  that 
level. 

Possibly  some  young  lady  who  left  school 
when  she  had  finished  the  eighth  grade  will 
say :  "  He's  talking  all  the  time  about  edu- 
cated girls.  What  chance  has  an  uneducated 
girl  got?" 

It  is  true  that  I  am  talking  about  "  edu- 
cated girls,"  and  it  is  also  true  that  an  "  un- 
educated girl "  hasn't  a  chance.  But  what  is 
education?  It  is  not  derived  solely  from 
schools.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  only  a  small 
part  of  the  world's  education  results  from 
schooling.  The  more  valuable  education 
comes  through  observation  and  reflection. 
The  nice  girl  who  dresses  in  bad  taste,  who 

217 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

powders  or  rouges  conspicuously,  who  chews 
gum  publicly,  who  uses  poor  English  or  who 
speaks  shrilly,  shows  not  so  much  a  lack  of 
education  as  a  lack  of  observation  and  reflec- 
tion. However  much  lacking  in  scholarship 
she  may  be,  she  still  has  the  opportunity  to 
learn  by  observation.  Frankly,  I  don't  think 
there  is  much  chance  for  a  girl  who  can't 
perfect  her  speech,  dress  and  deportment 
by  her  observation  of  cultured  people,  even 
though  her  contact  with  them  is  only  occa- 
sional. Any  girl,  unless  she  is  hopelessly 
stupid,  can  learn  to  do,  say  and  wear  the 
right  thing.  After  that,  what?  To  what  ad- 
ditional lengths  can  she  extend  her  educa- 
tion, independent  of  the  aid  of  schools? 

Girls  can  educate  themselves  to  superla- 
tive skill  in  useful  pursuits  that  are  capable 
of  being  turned  into  highly  gainful  occupa- 
tions. The  corsetiere  who  trains  herself  to 
be  twenty-five  per  cent,  more  deft  and  tact- 
ful than  her  fellows,  can  become  a  forewoman 
and  some  day  perhaps  have  a  business  of  her 

218 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

own.  The  sales  girl  who  studies  her  mer- 
chandise and  learns  how  to  present  its  merits 
intelligently  and  effectively  cannot  fail  to 
progress  toward  something  worth  while,  if 
she  does  not  surrender  to  a  sense  of  fatigue 
or  grow  sullen  from  the  conviction  that  she 
is  being  overworked  or  underpaid.  There  is 
no  room  at  the  top  in  business  for  women — 
or  men — who  devote  much  time  or  thought 
to  personal  grievances. 

I  have  spoken  of  nice  girls  several  times. 
In  business  scarcely  any  man  in  his  senses 
has  any  use  for  any  kind  of  girl  except  a 
thoroughly  nice  girl.  Personally,  I  think 
that  nearly  all  girls  are  instinctively  nice 
girls,  but  unfortunately  some  nice  girls  don't 
take  enough  pains  to  "  act  nice."  In  business 
it's  more  important  to  "  act  nice  "  than  to 
"  look  nice,"  although  there  is  no  objection 
to  the  latter. 

There  are  a  good  many  fif ty-dollar-a-week 
jobs  which  girls  could  fill,  but  there  seem  to 
be  very  few  fifty-dollar-a-week  girls.  I 

219 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

think  the  scarcity  of  fifty-dollar-a-week  girls 
is  due  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  the  average 
business  girl  cannot  devote  her  mind  wholly 
to  her  business  for  any  considerable  length 
of  time.  The  instincts  of  her  sex  divide  her 
interests  and  render  her  incapable  of  the  con- 
tinuous absorption  in  its  problems  which 
business  usually  exacts  as  the  price  of  note- 
worthy success. 

It  would  require  several  generations  of 
business  women  ancestors  to  produce  a  race 
of  women  who,  in  general,  could  compete 
with  men  in  business  on  equal  terms.  It  will 
take  more  than  the  war  and  suffrage  to  erad- 
icate from  women  generally  the  feminine 
traits  which  make  womankind  so  admirable, 
and  yet  so  hopelessly  disqualify  the  average 
woman  for  the  more  important  responsibil- 
ities of  business.  The  girl  who  wants  to 
become  a  fifty-dollar-a-week  girl  must  rec- 
ognize the  temperamental  handicaps  which 
her  sex  imposes.  To  overcome  those  handi- 
caps without  obliterating  her  womanly  charm 
220 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

is  one  of  her  problems.  She  must  concen- 
trate continuously  on  her  business  with  the 
same  enthusiastic  absorption  which,  during 
the  war,  she  displayed  in  knitting  sweaters. 
In  other  words  she  must  make  her  business  a 
permanent  hobby.  Perhaps  that  seems  worth 
more  than  fifty  dollars  a  week,  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  fifty-dollar-a-week 
girl  is  very  likely  to  become  a  hundred-dol- 
lar-a-week  girl. 

My  dear  young  lady,  it's  a  great  life,  if 
you  don't  weaken.  There's  a  fifty-dollar 
position  waiting  for  you  somewhere,  if  you 
are  brave  enough  and  constant  enough  to 
capture  it. 


U' 
NIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

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WOV  18  1947 


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NOV  1    '.357 


a  i! 

LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


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